2020 Penn State Football: Inside how offense will find big plays

Penn State Football’s offense might be in a state of transition in 2020, but that doesn’t mean the Nittany Lions won’t have plenty of big-play potential

Penn State Football will enter the 2020 abbreviated season with a new man calling the shots on offense.

Former Minnesota offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca will lead the Penn State offense after former offensive coordinator Ricky Rahne took the Old Dominion head coaching position last December.

Ciarrocca, often referred to as “Coach Rock”, brings a balanced and explosive offensive philosophy to Happy Valley. Penn State fans will remember what his Minnesota offense did to the Nittany Lions last November, scoring 31 points, the most Penn State gave up during the 2019 regular season.

Ciarrocca’s system at Minnesota was all about spreading the wealth as much as possible. Last year, three Golden Gophers running backs had 73 or more rushes, while two receivers had 1,200 yard  seasons.

How this system carries over here at Penn State will be interesting. Projected starter Journey Brown is likely out for the year with an undisclosed medical condition. Penn State is now down to four scholarship running backs, headlined by Noah Cain.

In addition to losing their starting running back, Penn State does not have the talented wide receiver duo that Minnesota had last season. Jahan Dotson is the only proven wide out, with 27 catches last season. The rest of the receiver group has 23 career catches combined.

What Penn State lacks at receiver, they make up for at tight end. Pat Freiermuth is one of the top talents at tight end in the entire nation. He caught 43 balls for 507 yards and seven touchdowns last season. His back-ups, Zach Kuntz, Brenton Strange and Theo Johnson are all rather inexperienced, but were highly ranked recruits and have been preforming well in camp.

The concern is that while Penn State has relied heavily on their tight ends under Franklin, Ciarrocca’s tight ends at Minnesota caught a combined 10 passes last season. Now, a lot of that has to do with the fact that Minnesota wasn’t talented at tight end and they had two star wide receivers to throw to instead.

The biggest thing that Ciarrocca will be called on to do, is turn Sean Clifford into Tanner Morgan. Clifford preformed well in his first season as a starter, completing 59% of his passes for 2,654 yards and 23 touchdowns compared to seven interceptions. He also scored five rushing touchdowns. The problem is, he often struggled against good defenses, especially on the road against Iowa, Minnesota and Ohio State, arguably the three best teams he faced. Some of that wasn’t his fault, as Rahne was also accused of struggling with play-calling in big games.

Morgan flourished under Ciarrocca, completing 66% of his passes for 3,253 yards and 30 touchdowns. He threw seven interceptions. Morgan looked confident and comfortable in pocket, and much of that had to do with how easy Ciarrocca’s system was for him.

Some of Clifford’s downsides had the do with the fact that he was under distress a lot. Penn State’s offensive line gave up 32 sacks in 2019.

That is something that first-year offensive line coach Phil Trautwein will look to change. Trautwein comes from Boston College, where he turned 3-star and 2-star recruits into All-ACC team guys. He also coached a first round pick while at Boston College.

Penn State’s offensive line group returns everyone who played meaningful snaps last season, expect for Steven Gonzalez. Penn State returns two fifth year players in center Michal Menet and tackle/guard Will Fries. Left tackle Rasheed Walker has also garnered a lot of praise and even showed up on a couple 2021 first round mock drafts. Two guards with experience return as well in 2020 in C.J. Thorpe and Mike Miranda. Both have a nasty streak to them and are good run blockers. Redshirt freshman Caeden Wallace is expected to get time at right tackle, along with redshirt junior Des Holmes, who saw lots of action last year.

In other words, Penn State has seven linemen for five spots. That might sound like a problem, but considering we’re less than seven years removed from Penn State having defensive tackles play offensive line, it’s a welcomed sight to have seven guys capable of starting.

Not only will the offensive line have to protect Clifford, but they’ll have to open holes for this young Penn State rushing attack.

Brown led the Nittany Lions in 2019 in the three main rushing stats, carries(129), rush yards(890), and touchdowns(12). He ended the year as the feature back and exploded in the Cotton Bowl with over 200 yards rushing. He received some Heisman hype for the 2020 season following this performance. There were high expectations for Brown this year, and many expected him to dominate Big Ten defenses. Now Ciarrocca has to find a way to replace this production.

Penn State has the talent and depth to overcome this unfortunate situation. Noah Cain impressed as a true freshman last season, scoring eight touchdowns and starting a couple games before suffering an injury against Michigan State. Behind Cain is another sophomore Devyn Ford, who averaged 5.7 yards per carry last season. Ford is an explosive runner, who has homerun capabilities. Those two will carry the bulk of the touches with Brown out. A rotation between the sophomore duo seems likely.

Behind those two are two true freshmen who will be counted on as well. Caziah Holmes and Keyvone Lee were 4-star recruits who have garnered a lot of hype in a short amount of time. Holmes wears No. 26 and Lee wears No. 24, remember the last Penn State backfield to wear those two numbers?

Holmes was also listed as an all purpose back coming out of high school, so expect him to be a factor in the pass game. Lee is a big back at 6’0 230, the biggest on the roster, who should see time in short yardage situations and late in games when Penn State wants to punish tired defenses. These two need to grow up fast, Penn State is an injury away from these two being counted on heavily as true freshmen.

Wide Receiver is the position that has the most question marks on the offensive side of the ball. As metioned, it’s a rather inexperienced group that needs to step up. Dotson will be the go-to receiver, replacing K.J. Hamler. The two outside spots are up for grabs. There are five guys veiying for those two spots, Daniel George, Cam Sullivan-Brown, T.J. Jones, Parker Washington and KeAndre Lambert-Smith.

The two projected starters with Dotson are Sullivan-Brown and Washington. Sullivan-Brown was preforming well last season before an injury ended his season. He’s not a game-changing talent, but he’s a steady, sure-handed receiver who will make some clutch plays, a Saeed Blacknall type. Washington comes in at 5’10 205, not bad for a true freshman. He could have the best hands of any receiver on the team, and is a quick and elusive guy to bring down in the open. The fact he is a starter for game one as a true freshman shows you how much talent he has.

George is a redshirt sophomore who is still trying to get it all together.  He’s had some drops, but is physical and has good speed. Him and Clifford own the record for longest pass play in program history when they connected on a 95-yard score against Kent State in 2018. He has the potential, he just needs it to click. Jones saw very little time last year and did not catch a pass as a true freshman. He seemed to be doing well in the short time Penn State had in the Spring, showing up as a starter on the Spring game depth chart. Jones is a big-play, take the top off a defense guy, so in a way, he will replace Hamler. In his senior year of High School, Jones averaged 19.8 yards per catch. If he can replicate that in college, Penn State’s offense just got a lot more dangerous. Lambert-Smith is listed as Dotson’s primary back-up, so it’s unclear how much action he’ll see right away. He’s a guy who will work himself into more playing time later in the year. He probably has the best combination of size, speed and athleticism of all the receivers. He needs experience, but he could definitely work himself into a starters role at some point.

This group is young, but if they click in Ciarrocca’s system, they have the talent to take Penn State’s offense to the next level.

While the receivers may take time to gel, the tight ends won’t. Freiermuth is back and is bound for another big year. Penn State also has talented depth behind their starter. We may see a lot of two tight end looks this year as Ciarrocca looks to get Strange, Kuntz, and Johnson involved. This would make sense considering the uncertainty at wide receiver. Look for Ciarrocca to use his many options at tight end to his advantage and cause match-up problems for defenses. At 6’7, Kuntz is a guy that Penn State can put out wide and have a smaller corner or safety covering him, making him a mismatch that the team can expose, especially if you have Freiermuth working the middle of the field getting most of the defense’s attention. This unit will play a big role in Sean Clifford’s improvement, it helps that his safety blanket Freiermuth is here when needed.

This is an offense that scored 36 points per game last year, and fans still weren’t happy at times. There’s a lot of pressure on Ciarrocca to not only put up more points than Rahne did, but also keep the offense from stalling after going up early. Last season, we saw Penn State jump out to big leads against the likes of Purdue and Michigan and then do nothing for the rest of the game, nearly costing them the Michigan game.

We also saw questionable play calls in Penn State’s two loses against Minnesota and Ohio State. Fans want better situational play calling and Ciarrocca may be the guy for the job. Adjustments are the name of the game, that’s what made Joe Moorhead so good at Penn State. Rahne failed to do that at times, Ciarrocca cannot make the same mistakes.

Penn State will only go as far as Sean Clifford takes them. With an experienced and talented offensive line, a deep, but young, running back group, an All-American at tight end, a raw, but talented receiver group, and a new offensive coordinator, he may have the tools to take this team very far.