James Franklin He works constantly and strives to improve in the off-season. The Penn State head coach is set for an even better offensive in 2020, hoping Penn State will have the advantage in the Big Ten.
It’s a loaded conference at the top and the Nittany Lions will need every advantage they can take to try to beat Ohio State in the Big Ten East and try to punch a ticket to the College Football Playoff for the first time. Introduce new offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca.
At Fox Big Noon Kickoff, former Ohio state head coach and current analyst Urban Meyer Franklin asked how the offense under Ciarrocca would change.
“It’s interesting,” said Franklin. “I firmly believe that where we are now as a program and how we are established, we have a crime at Penn State. We have a Penn State defense. We have a special Penn State team. I’m also not naive enough to say that I’m going to hire a guy who’s really good at what he does, and force him to run our system, or we shouldn’t have hired him. We brought him here for a reason. But the discussion was that this is not broken here. We do some very good things. You do some very good things. I would like to come in and talk about everything with our offensive staff and what makes sense. How can we put all this together?
“I am very transparent at the front about what I am looking for in recruiting and what I am looking for when I am hiring. That’s something he was very comfortable with, too. He is an experienced player who calls. I think it will look a bit like Minnesota. It will look a bit like Penn State. As you know, even when you don’t hire a new coordinator, you are modifying things in the off season and doing studies and adding a little there and cutting a bit in other areas. That is where we are now. If you brought the Minnesota offensive staff to our meeting right now, they wouldn’t know what we call things. Has changed “.
Ciarrocca spent the previous three seasons as an offensive coordinator and quarterback coach for Minnesota under PJ Fleck. Last season, while training quarterback Tanner Morgan, the Minnesota offensive took off in 2019. Morgan threw for 3,253 yards, 30 touchdowns, seven interceptions and completed 66 percent of his passes.
Prior to Minnesota, Ciarrocca was the offensive coordinator and coach for low-quarterbacks Fleck in western Michigan from 2013-16.
Now at Penn State, Ciarrocca’s job is to train the quarterback. Sean Clifford since Nittany Lions are likely to fight Justin Fields and Ohio State for the division crown in Big Ten East.
Football Scoop counted the 20 most important assistant coaches in college football And Ciarrocca is high on that list at number 2. When it comes to why Ciarrocca is so valuable to the Nittany Lions, look no further than what your old team did to your new team last fall.
“You know what they say, if you can’t beat them, hire them,” writes Zach Barnett of Football Scoop. “While Kirk Ciarrocca He was not hired as the offensive coordinator for Penn State because of the 31-26 victory over the Nittany Lions alone, that 460-yard performance (against a defense that allowed 346 per game) certainly didn’t hurt. “
