ALTOONA, Pa. -- Mike Yurcich didn't go full on Mike Leach with all sorts of zany sayings, but one gets the feeling that, given enough time and familiarity with the media, Yurcich would turn into a soundbite machine.
During a Zoom call Thursday morning, Yurcich talked about his wife liking trick plays, discussed why an offense doesn't need sex appeal, made a joke about Tom Brady and invoked some Penn State history with a cool story about Rip Engle.
The offensive coordinator weaved all that in and out of some excellent football discussion, providing a lot of good details and insight into the Nittany Lions' offense.
The Penn State media only gets to talk to assistant coaches a handful of times each year -- typically once during spring ball, on preseason media day, one random Thursday during the season and once before a bowl game.
We don't always get to know the assistants all that well, simply because we don't hear from them all that often. Defensive coordinator Brent Pry and defensive backs coach Terry Smith are exceptions on the current staff, since they've been around a long time and have dealt with the PSU media a bunch of times.
Most people consider Yurcich a head coach in the making, so if and when that happens, he's going to have a lot of opportunities to tell his stories and showcase his personality more often.
Here's hoping James Franklin gives Yurcich some more opportunities to speak with the media, although that wish likely will not be granted.
Here are some of the notable things Yurcich discussed Thursday, starting with my personal favorite:
The Tom Brady line, when discussing offensive line protection
Yurcich was asked about QB Sean Clifford making progress as a pocket passer. Pretty simple question. Yurcich had a great response:
"It's about protection, right? It's like, it's Sean, it's Sean, it's Sean's, how has Sean improved, Sean improved, Sean improved. Dude, it's a team game. So, the protection's better, and that's gonna help Sean, right? The protection's poor, the quarterback's gonna look poor.
"I don't know what to tell you. That's been the case. Would Tom Brady be Tom Brady if the Browns drafted him back in 1974 or whenever he came out. No, he wouldn't."
In that same response, Yurcich later had this great line:
"I think Sean has made up his mind to be a tough SOB, and to stand in there and keep his eyes downfield on a consistent basis. That needs to continue to grow."
Does Yurcich have a favorite play?
"I don't have a favorite. Favorites are touchdowns."
Where does the creativity come from in his plays?
"Well, my wife, she loves trick plays," he said. "So she inspires me. No, I'm just kidding. But she does. Who doesn't?"
Yurcich then went on to add this about creative plays:
"They got to be effective. It's not about being fancy, it's about being effective. The creativity and that sort of thing, it's trying to create space. It's not about sex appeal, it's about efficiency. And so, that's all we're trying to do. We're trying to disguise, free guys up and put our best players in space. And so, if that takes me standing on my head, then I'm going to stand on my head. It doesn't really matter how we get there as long as we do it."
That Rip Engle knew what he was doing
Legendary coach Rip Engle coached Penn State from 1950-65 and is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. Yurcich brought up Engle when talking about designing plays.
Penn State ran a nicely designed shovel pass at the goal line Saturday against Indiana for a touchdown, but the play was flagged because the Lions had an illegal formation on the line of scrimmage.
"You know, every time that you think you thought of something new, it was probably run 100 times before. I tell you, what's interesting is going back through the (All-Sports) Museum here at Beaver Stadium, I was going through. I saw Coach Engle's old-school playbook, and he had a shovel pass drawn up on one of the sheets, and I mean verbatim. It was exactly like the one we ran last week, although we lined up illegally. unfortunately. Maybe I should have looked a little bit closer at Coach Engle's playbook."
What is the state of the offense after five games?
"The main thing that we're doing well is we're securing the football, we're scoring enough points to win games. And that's the bottom line. That's most important," Yurcich said. "We need to become more explosive. We need to run the football better. Our pass protection, I think, has been good. Our receivers and tight ends have played well. Our running backs are still coming along. They're definitely good enough, there's no question about it. For whatever reason the rhythm hasn't been to where it needs to be to be elite."
The passing game success vs. the running game struggles
A lot of times in college and pro football, teams that are great throwing the ball aren't all that great running the ball. Or vice versa. It stands to reason that if you're working so much on one area that you become great in it, then another area may not be as effective.
That seems to be the case with Penn State's offense so far this season. Clfiford and the passing game have been very good, but the running game had not performed well until finally breaking through against Indiana.
Yurcich went into some good detail when I asked about that whole dynamic.
"There has to come a point in time where you're like, OK, let's play more to our strengths and less to our weaknesses," he said. "I think there has to be somewhat of a balance within your offense, and any successful offense is going to be effective both on the ground in through the air.
"What we try to do is, the more effective our ground game is the more effective our pass game's going to be. We're not the other way around. At times you can be. At times the pass can open up the run. But at the same time, there needs to be a physical element to it and attitude about it, a mentality about it that we're trying to establish.
"At the same time, you've got to move the ball and score points. So to your question, I think you're on it. I think you understand it probably a little bit deeper than some. Are you running plays just to run plays? ... That's a fine line, and we have to continue to put ourselves in the best position to win football games."
Given what Yurcich said, sure, Penn State wants to have a good running game, but the reality is the Lions are trying to win games, and the best way to do that so far has been through the air. In other words, it's hard to work on one aspect when another aspect is actually accomplishing the goal of helping you win the game.
