ALTOONA, Pa. -- Everybody thought they were good moves at the time. And I mean everybody, so don't be sitting out there trying to play revisionist history with any "I told you so's."
You won't get one from me, either. I didn't have a big problem with Penn State moving on from Kirk Ciarrocca after the 4-5 season in 2020, and I wrote this column claiming Mike Yurcich looked like a fantastic hire as the new offensive coordinator.
Yeah, so far, I was wrong about that last part. Just like basically everyone else. Yurcich hasn't come remotely close to the expectations.
For the record, the only issue I took with James Franklin firing Ciarrocca on Jan. 8, 2021 was that the guy barely even got a chance to succeed at Penn State. He was hired during the COVID year, had to install all of his offense via Zoom and was forced by Franklin to "blend" his system with the one the Nittany Lions had been running. Then, after all that, the Lions were devastated at running back when Journey Brown had to medically retire and Noah Cain was injured on the first series of the season opener at Indiana.
The deck wasn't just stacked against Ciarrocca in 2020. The guy was brought into a house of cards that got incinerated. Or, to put it another way, this popular and hilarious meme basically summarized Ciarrocca's situation at Penn State:
This week, it'll be Yurcich vs. Ciarrocca, who's back with Minnesota as offensive coordinator. And whether he'll ever publicly admit it or not, you gotta think Ciarrocca has a giant chip on his shoulder coming into this one.
Yurcich came in with a fantastic offensive reputation, but had a very poor debut season at Penn State in 2021. The running game was atrocious, Sean Clifford got hurt after a 5-0 start, and everything fell apart during a 7-6 season. There were lots of reasons for the collapse, but goodness, the offense was offensive during the second half of the year.
There was, of course, the pathetic showing during the nine-overtime loss to Illinois, 20-18, in which Penn State's offense looked inept.
Who knows what Yurcich was thinking trying to run the ball so much playing against a terrible Michigan State secondary in the regular-season finale. Then, the Lions managed only 10 points in a 24-10 Outback Bowl defeat against Arkansas.
To his credit, Yurcich looked like he had solved a lot of the problems early this season. The Lions scored 35 points at Purdue and 41 at Auburn, and Yurcich was pulling all the right strings with excellent play calling.
But the final non-conference tuneup against Central Michigan produced some questionable lulls on offense. At the time, we kind of chalked them up to how difficult it can be to get up for every game, especially after the huge win at Auburn the week before.
Next came Northwestern, a 17-7 win where Penn State turned it over five times. We chalked that one up to rainy, sloppy conditions.
But then came Saturday at Michigan. A 41-17 loss that saw the offense produce two good plays -- a long pass by Clifford and a long run by the QB -- but nothing else on the day. Penn State managed only one first down in the first half, and after that long pass by Clifford early in the third quarter, Yurcich's play calls on the next two plays were terrible and led to only a field goal.
Oddly enough, Yurcich called for a few fade passes in key spots at Michigan, which failed. Ironically, it was Ciarrocca who became well known for calling too many fade passes during his one season with Penn State, so much so that fans started making fun of him for it because those plays never worked.
It's easy to point to Yurcich's struggles of late, but the same can be said for Ciarrocca at Minnesota. He's in his first season back with the team after spending last year at West Virginia.
The Gophers got off to a 4-0 start, which included a 34-7 thrashing at Michigan State. But the next game, at home, Minnesota played without star running back Mohamed Ibrahim and scored only 10 points in a 20-10 loss to Purdue.
And this past Saturday, Ciarrocca's offense managed only 14 points in a 26-14 loss at Illinois. Ibrahim returned, but starting quarterback Tanner Morgan was knocked out of that one with a head injury, and his status for this week is unknown (see below).
So, that's a total of 24 points for the Gophers in their past two games, and Ciarrocca is taking heat there for the struggles.
We enter this week's game, therefore, with one current and former Penn State offensive coordinator under fire, for separate teams, and both motivated to silence the critics. Throw in Ciarrocca's extra motivation after getting fired by Penn Sate -- perhaps unfairly -- and it adds even more intrigue to the most interesting week of the season for the Lions.
RELATED: Revisit this story from late last season, pointing out that Yurcich's offense at Penn State had not equaled what Ciarrocca had done in his one season with the Lions.
There is also this great nugget from Tyler Donohue of 247Sports:
Since the 2021 arrival of offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich, Penn State has failed to produce 21+ points in 7 of 15 games played against Power Five opponents.
— Tyler Donohue (@TDsTake) October 17, 2022
In 2017-20, with three different OCs, that happened 7 times in 38 Power Five games. Clifford started 17 of those games.
MORGAN UPDATE
Minnesota coach PJ Fleck held his weekly press conference Monday and gave this update on QB Tanner Morgan:
"Tanner is doing very well. He woke up on Sunday morning and surprisingly felt really good, which is great. He was evaluated at the medical center right after the game, which I know all of you saw, but he was cleared by the medical teams and the medical staffs of where he was at to be able to fly home with the team. We held the plane a little bit longer, so he can finish up testing and flew home with the team, as well.
"That stuff's out of my hands. I just know that he appreciates all the prayers, thoughts, support, and text messages from everybody. I know we do as well as a team, but again, he surprisingly woke up and felt really good, but he's in our medical care and under that umbrella right now. But he's doing he's doing very well.
As for the quarterback situation this week and whether Morgan can play:
"We have other quarterbacks that can play if he's not able to go, but that's not necessarily just ruled out yet. But I'm not the one in charge of all those decisions. That's our medical team. And I know he's in very, very good care. And he's doing really well."
Fleck said there hasn't been an update from the medical team yet on whether Morgan will practice this week.
"We'll see what they say," Fleck said. "I know he'll be at practice for sure. And again, my policy especially with quarterbacks or somebody who's played a ton of football, is you don't have to practice throughout the week until you get to the end of the week. And then you have to be able to show that you can do something.
"But say for Tuesday/Wednesday, people will say, well, you got to practice by Wednesday or you're probably not ready to play football. I agree with that, but depending on who it is. I think it's a case-to-case basis. So we'll see how he feels, but I know this our medical staff's not gonna do anything that puts Tanner's life/safety/health in jeopardy."
