Dec. 16, 2015
Opening Statement
James Franklin: As always we appreciate everyone coming out. We thought that it made more sense to have two separate availabilities this week and not be splitting questions between preparation for the bowl game and Coach [Joe] Moorhead. We thought this gave everyone a better opportunity to spend some time with Coach Moorhead.
I am excited. [Coach Moorhead and I] have probably had about 40 conversations over the last couple of weeks to come to this decision. I think both of us are very comfortable in terms of philosophy, on how we want to offense to go and on what we are doing at Penn State. We are fired up about Joe and his family joining our Penn State family.
Joe Moorhead: I am very thrilled to be here at Penn State. This is a tremendous opportunity for myself and my family, both professionally and personally. I am coming back close to home, and will be able to contribute to a tradition rich program and help Coach [James] Franklin and Penn State achieve their goals.
I am incredibly thankful to Coach Franklin and Sandy Barbour for giving me this opportunity and I am looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting to work.
Q. Can you talk about your coaching influences and how you have developed your offensive philosophy?
MOORHEAD: Really my offensive style was developed when I was at the University of Pittsburgh as a defensive graduate assistant with Walt Harris. Coach Harris had tremendous success in college, both at Pitt and Ohio State, so most of what I learned in the run game and pass game is based in the west coast offense.
I left Pitt to go to Georgetown, where I had the opportunity to take a coordinator role during my last season there. I moved on to the University of Akron, and J.D. Brookhart is a noted receivers coach and I had an opportunity to work with him. He coached guys like Larry Fitzgerald, Latef Grim and Antonio Bryant, and he gave me the opportunity to become the offensive coordinator in 2007 and 2008 and that is where I really started to develop a version of the system that I run now.
I moved on to the University of Connecticut, where I worked with Randy Edsall, and I learned a lot about how to build a program and how to win games with the intangibles. Then, I was on to Fordham, where I had the opportunity to be the head coach at my alma mater.
The one person I didn't talk about comes from my time as a defensive graduate assistant when I was at Pitt, and that is Larry Coyer. To be on the defensive side of the ball for a year was invaluable and really helped develop me as an offensive coach.
Q. What can we expect from your offensive scheme and system?
MOORHEAD: I have a base offensive structure that I believe in, but basically when it comes down to it, it is about putting points on the board. Specifically, scoring one more point than your defense allows. We want the trademarks of our offense to be: dictate the tempo, be aggressive and attacking, we want to control the running game and make explosive plays in the passing game. We want to do that, while being successful on third down, not turning the ball over and scoring touchdowns in the red zone.
Week to week that is going to vary based on our personnel and the type of defense we are seeing, and I look forward to getting together with the [coaches and players] after the bowl season and starting the instillation process for the offense.
Q. James you talked about having a list of people you would pursue if an opening came about. How long has Joe been on your list? When did you know you were going to make this change and know you were going to have to let go of John [Donovan]?
FRANKLIN: As far as the second part of your question, I think you all know my personality now. I am a very loyal guy when it comes to my staff. We are all really close, so [letting go of John] was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. I have so much respect for John and his family and what we were able to achieve together. So, that was not an easy thing for me. I am still working through it to be honest with you.
Joe and I have crossed paths a number of times. I had an opportunity to hear him speak at a clinic a year ago and was very impressed with his intelligence and how detail-oriented he is. You hear about his background in the west coast offense and you all know that my background is in the west coach offense, so there are some parallels there, and in how we both grew up in the profession. I think both of those factors helped. And, then, last year at the bowl game we practiced at Fordham and I had a chance to spend a little time with Joe there.
For me, it was the data. As you mentioned I have a list [of potential coaches] at each position, but with the coordinator positions you want to study data. I had feelings and thoughts about what we were looking for and there is a long list; a guy with Pennsylvania ties is always helpful -- not the end-all be-all, but it is helpful. The fact that coach [Moorhead] is from western Pennsylvania and from played at Pittsburgh Central Catholic, he has a lot of connection and networks that will help our program. The fact that he was a head coach is helpful, from a leadership perspective is important, and that he had success building that program.
At the end of the day, you take all of those guys on the list and you run all of that date. You look at third down percentage, scoring offense, red zone and every other piece of information you can get and you look at who is consistently at the top of each of those categories. Joe kept jumping out in almost every single category and I was very impressed.
That's how it evolved, and then we had about 40 conversations about everything: our staff, overall offensive philosophy, Penn State.
A good story; we were supposed to interview one day at six o'clock and my flight got delayed and I couldn't get in. So, we didn't start the interview until 10:15 p.m. and it ended at 2:47 a.m. It could have kept going. We have been able to spend a lot of time together in a short period of time and we have really been getting to know each other better.
Joe has also had a relationship with some of the guys on our staff. He and Terry Smith have a relationship, as well as Bob Shoop. So, those things help, as well.
Q. What do you as a hallmark of an efficient offense? How do you measure "getting the job done" on offense?
MOORHEAD: I think it is what I talked about a little bit earlier. A successful offense is one that is able to put points on the board, and to be able to do that you have to be able to move the football with balance between the run game and the pass game. Usually, offenses that are successful are also able to make explosive plays and limit the number of turnover. You have to be able to convert on third down and extend drives, and then you have to be able to score touchdowns in the red zone.
I think that is something my offenses have been able to do during my time as an offensive coordinator and the tempo that play is going to be what you would call up-tempo or fast paced, but we want to play with different kinds of tempo. It will be about getting into the right play, as opposed to running the wrong play quickly. We can run as fast as we need to, but we are going to make sure we are in the best play in to align with the defense that we are presented.
Q. What do you expect out of the next couple of weeks during this transition phase? Will you be advising or more hands on coaching?
MOORHEAD: I will defer that to Coach Franklin, but I will have no role in the game planning process. For me, it is about sitting down and meeting the players, getting out to practice and observing the talent, but nothing more than that. It is not fair to the team right now for me to do much more, having not been here all year and not having much knowledge of the personnel.
FRANKLIN: The way we have it organized is that Coach Moorhead will set up meetings with each returning offensive player so that he can sit down and spend some time with each one of them. This will be dedicated time to get to know them, discuss the offense and talk to them about the direction that we will be going. He will also be out at practice watching and working on getting things ready for the offensive instillation, so that the day after the bowl game we are able to get moving on the implementation of the playbook as we head towards spring practice.
It is also an important time to build relationships with our staff and everyone in the Lasch Building, and also begin the transition for his family.
Q. Coming in do you have to be careful not to try to fit the players into the system or is that an ongoing thing as you move through the spring?
MOORHEAD: I think a successful offense is able to adapt their scheme to the personnel and that was part of the process that coach and I went through pretty extensively over the last couple of weeks. The scheme I like to run and the things I want to implement, I think the pieces are in place for us to do that. There will be a lot of meeting time and a lot of evaluation that goes into that, but an offensive coach's job is to put his players in a position to be successful. A lot of that comes down to evaluation of talent and seeing how it fits with what we want to do offensively. Certainly, we don't want to try and fit a square peg in a round hole.
FRANKLIN: That is part of the reason he is here, because in studying his style and what he likes to do, I think it fits our personnel. We still will have some challenges and issues to work through, as you are aware of, but what [Moorhead] does offensively can allow us to play to some of our strengths.
Q. Can you talk about your work with [Fordham running back] Chase Edmonds -- who is a talented running back -- and what you excited about as you get to working with another talented running back in Saquon Barkley?
MOORHEAD: Absolutely, but even going back to the University of Akron we had a tremendous running back named Dennis Kennedy, and then on Connecticut where we had two fantastic running backs, Andre Dixon, who had the opportunity to play in the NFL, and Jordan Todman, who left early to go to the NFL and is now with the Steelers.
You are right, Chase [Edmonds] is a phenomenal talent, a local kid that won the Jerry Rice Award for the top player at the FCS level, and has rushed for over 1,500 yards in each of the past two years. Our offense is centered around being able to run the ball successfully, and if we can do that in a physical manner and move the ball on the ground it will force defenses to commit numbers in the box and that can create one-on-one match ups on the perimeter.
For us to be successful on offense we are going to have to run the ball well and that is something that we have done and Chase is a big part of that. Chase is not only a great player, but a great person, and I was fortunate to get to coach him for a couple of years. He has a very bright future.
Q. Will Joe also coach the tight ends, or will that change?
FRANKLIN: I have not decided on that yet. I think that Joe [Moorhead] and Ricky [Rahne], as well as our staff, create some flexibility. Those are some of the things we will be working through in the next week or two and then decide what is in the best interest of Penn State moving forward.
Q. What are some of the characteristics that you look for in a quarterback?
MOORHEAD: The physical traits are obvious, you have the position specific things, such as height and weight and speed. Obviously, you have to have a strong arm, but accuracy is probably more important to me. We do enough things in the run game that our quarterback is going to have to be athletic and have to make plays with his feet, either by design or if the play breaks down.
Our pass game -- with the roots in the west coach offense -- our quarterback will have things to look at with protection and pre-snap recognition in the run game and pass game, and then also in the post-snap reads. You want him to be a leader, so that when he walks in the room you don't have to ask if he is the quarterback. I am excited to see what these guys can do.
Q. James, I'm curious at what point did you realize Joe was the right coordinator for Penn State, and Joe, I'm curious about at what point did you realize this was the right position for you?
FRANKLIN: As you can imagine, I was talking to a number of guys and, the more I talked to Joe, the more I believed in him and believed he was the right fit for our players, for our staff and for the university as a whole. It's no different than any other process, you talk to a number of people, you get excited about a number of people, but as time goes, and the more conversations you have and the more research you do, at some point the light kind of comes on. And our conversations, probably the last week, got more specific. He was pretty up front with me about what his intentions were, and I was pretty up front with him.
Up until that, point all of our conversations had been over the phone and not face-to-face. I thought it was important to sit down face-to-face, go through the playbook, watch film together and really kind of grind down on the details and the specifics because I didn't want him to come and things come up that we weren't on the same page with, and vice versa. I wanted to get all of those things worked through so he knew exactly what he was walking in to and felt comfortable with those things, and same thing for us.
I think there just came a point where I felt like this was the direction we wanted to go, had that conversation with the administration and then once I knew he was on-board, then I could have some conversations with those other coaches and let them know we were going to in a different direction.
MOORHEAD: In the same way that Coach Franklin had his criteria of what he was looking for in a coordinator, I feel like I checked off all of the boxes coach was looking for. Philosophically, all of the discussions that we had, there are certain things as a coach where you are looking to make a move professionally, that they need to fit for you, and they did. I left a great situation at Fordham. I had a long-term contract, a tremendous amount of success, it was my alma mater, and I loved our kids. When you look at the opportunity to come to Penn State and be the offensive coordinator and be a part of a program on the rise that has great things on the horizon, and do it two hours from home. My mom, my dad and my wife's parents still live in Western PA, and to get a chance to have our kids closer to home, it was mutual. I think coach found out that I fit the things he was looking for in a coordinator and for me to make the move from Fordham and to come to Penn State, it all just fit.
FRANKLIN: That's the other thing I would say. I wanted to make sure that we hired someone that really wanted to be here. It really became obvious as the process, not only did Joe want to be here, but his family wanted to be here. (MOORHEAD: Absolutely.)
The connections that they have to this state, it made a lot of sense for everybody.
Q. Joe, you were a head coach, you worked your way up to head coach at your alma mater. How difficult of a decision was it to leave there, and what specifically was it about Penn State that prompted the decision?
MOORHEAD: It was an incredibly difficult decision because of the success we had the past four years, and that's certainly attributable to our players and our coaching staff. There have been opportunities for me to leave Fordham. I had an offer after last year at the FBS-level, and had some other things the years before. As I told our players and the kids we were recruiting, for me to leave Fordham, it was going to have to be a special, special opportunity at the FBS level, and obviously the offensive coordinator job at Penn State is one of those opportunities.
I informed the team in a meeting Saturday night, and it was very emotional. Our kids understood and they weren't happy to see me leave, but they certainly understood the opportunity and, you know, it just fit.
Q. You said your in-person interview with James went until nearly 3 a.m. What did you guys talk about for four-and-a-half hours?
FRANKLIN: We went through everything. Obviously, you kind of start with his personal/professional background, and then you go through all of the run-game schemes and that's kind of started with if I remember correctly, Joe. (MOORHEAD: Yes.)
We went through the run game, and then the problem was we still had the pass game to go through, and it was already 2 a.m. at that point. It just gave us an opportunity to kind of talk protections, talk about run game, talk about pass game, talk about quarterback development, talk about o-line development, talk about all of the different positions and how they're used. Talk about our personnel, and how it was going to fit. Talked about the personnel he's had in the past. Again, talked about coming up under Walt Harris and the west coast system and my background with the Green Bay Packers in the west coast system, so really everything. Talked about his son, who we offered a scholarship to. Talked about his daughter. Talked about his other son, his wife, everything, everything!
Some of the other staff members were in there, but as the night went on, they kept tapping out. Me and Joe kept going. At some point he had a ride coming. I was staying at the hotel, and he had to get home. I don't think the subway was going.
MOORHEAD: No it wasn't, the Metro North is shut down at 2:47 in the morning.
FRANKLIN: Correct, so it was Uber or taxi, or whatever it was. So we really talked through everything, and like I mentioned we had already had, without exaggerating, like 30 conversations on the phone, a couple times a day, so that helped, as well.
Q. Joe, your time as a head coach -- can you explain how you think that is going to help you now in your position at Penn State?
MOORHEAD: Coach and I have had that discussion, as an assistant coach coming up, and spending a lot of time doing that.
I think having the perspective of a head coach will make me a better assistant, in the sense that I can anticipate what coach is looking for and see some of the things that he wants. Until you have sat in that chair, sometimes as an assistant you really don't understand until you've been there, so I think I can offer coach perspective if he needs it on anything, and I certainly think my head coaching experience, like I said, will help me be a better assistant the second time through.
FRANKLIN: I looked at it a little bit about making sure we had an identity on offense, and that starts from the top. That starts from the head coach, it starts from the offensive coordinator and the defensive coordinator that you have an identity, that not only are you able to implement a plan and have a vision, but get everybody in the room excited about that plan and excited about that vision moving forward. So I think his ability to really make a huge impact at Fordham for the entire program, I'm excited to see what he can do when he is focused on the thing he is probably the most passionate about, which is offense and x's and o's and motivating your players to fit the system.
Q. James you said something about you think Joe is a good for your current personnel and addressing some of the challenges that you have. Could you be a little more specific about what those challenges are? I assume to some extent were talking about the o-line. Joe, how do you game plan for maybe an offensive line that is not totally dominating the line of scrimmage?
MOORHEAD: That would be difficult for me to say right now without having watched any of the guys on film or seeing what we have to work with. So I would probably defer that question to coach since that's probably not fair for me to answer right now.
FRANKLIN: I think obviously when you are in more of a pro-style, more traditional offense, you need to be big strong, physical and mature on the o-line and tight end position. And by spreading people out and spreading the defense out and creating natural running lanes, and some matchup issues, you're able to take away from some of those things. I think that's one of the things that we discussed. That's one of the things we looked at.
I was looking at a couple of different coordinators with different backgrounds, with different philosophies, but the more we thought about it, the more we talked about it, the more I kind of researched those things, I thought that was going to be helpful for us.
Our strength right now, I would make the argument is at wide receiver and running back. I think our tight end position is growing. I think our offensive line is growing, and we have three quarterbacks that we're excited about. So having those quarterbacks in position to make plays, to spread the field, to be able to distribute the ball where we're not in a situation, from a numbers perspective in the box and having to create for double-teams and things like that. I think it's going to allow our offensive line to continue to grow and take some of the pressure off.
Q. You mentioned starting in 2008 with the offense we're seeing now. I'm curious how much it has evolved since '08. How much do you put in and take out? Is it something you consider an evolving process every year?
MOORHEAD: Absolutely, and that is part of our self-scout process. The base foundation of our offense is going to remain the same. You finish every year and you go back and look at the cut-ups and see what were the things we did well, what were the things we did poorly and what can we do to improve upon that. There are variables in that as people graduate and you get new guys in. Certainly at Akron in 2008 is where we started. At UConn in 2009 and 2010 I think it was a version of our offense. Not as much of the things we did at Akron and certainly not what we are doing now. Certainly we're never going to stand pat on what we do. There's always ways to improve. The base concepts of the scheme will remain the same, and we're able to tweak it year-by-year and week-by-week, based on what we're seeing defensively or who we have personnel-wise.
Q. Joe, what kind of player were you at Central Catholic? How many years did you start? And is it true that Fordham was the only school that offered you a scholarship?
MOORHEAD: I was a one-year starter at Central Catholic, and if there is a definition of pocket passer, that would be it. I could throw the ball very well. I could not get out of my own and run a lick. I was first team all-conference quad-A, just saying [laughs].
I went on to Fordham and was a three-year starter there, and had a modicum of success I would say personally. I was an average football player and I had some success in college.
Q. From Fordham calling the plays, I'm assuming you were on the field as the head coach. Do you plan to be on the field here, and will there be much of a transition if you move upstairs?
MOORHEAD: I have done both. I have called it from the booth prior and have called it from the field the last four years. Really, a lot of that is there are moving parts in your scheme, and I think it will be imperative once the [bowl] game ends to sit down with the offensive staff and talk with the guys and see where they're most comfortable and where they fit, and make a decision there. To say right now, I've done it both and I think we've been successful, but I think a lot of that is contingent upon the other staff members and where they're comfortable as well.
Q. Joe, I was wondering how you were going to handle this from a family perspective. Obviously, interesting time of year to change jobs. How difficult will it be to move for your family?
MOORHEAD: The funny thing, when coach offered my eight-year-old, quarterback son a scholarship, [my son] looked at me and was amazed and excited. I said, "What are you waiting for? Tell the man yes!"
So that was awesome. And the thing he's fired up about is like, `Dad we never knew, now I'll get to play for you!' I said, `Yeah, it'll be pretty awesome.'
I think the great thing about it is, obviously the transition and moving in the coaching profession can be difficult on a family, and we have been to places for four or five years. Normally, the transition is most difficult on your kids, but in this instance, I was being nudged by the family to take the job more than they were concerned about it. My daughter was texting me on a daily basis to find out the updates from Coach Franklin. They're excited to get home. For them to be around their grandparents and be around their cousins and be home, we're going to try and get them up here as quick as we can. We're shooting for the first week of February. They're very excited to come back home.