New coordinator will fit PSU offense to personnel

With their respective backgrounds, it’s almost strange James Franklin and Mike Yurcich haven’t worked together before.

Yurcich, Penn State’s new offensive coordinator, played football at California University (Pa.), just a few years after Penn State’s head coach, Franklin, graduated from East Stroudsburg University.

Both cut their teeth coaching in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference for various teams. Now Yurcich is Franklin’s offensive coordinator, taking over for Kirk Ciarrocca who served in the role in 2020.

And Yurcich enters with a very good track record. From 2013-18, he was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Oklahoma State. In 2019, he became Ohio State’s passing-game coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Last season, Yurcich was Texas’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

Over the past five seasons, every offense that Yurcich has helped oversee has finished the year in the top-20 nationally in total offense. He has helped develop quarterbacks such as Mason Rudolph, Justin Fields and Sam Ehlinger. Basically, he’s a man who has had a lot of success on the offensive side of the ball.

“It’s not going to be a Mike Yurcich offense. It’s going to be a Penn State offense,” Yurcich said in his introductory Zoom call with media Tuesday. “There’s three keys to it really — traits, if you will. One, physical. We want to be physical. Two, we want to be a smart offense. Three, we want to be a skilled offense. We’re going to be a talented offense, obviously, from the players we’re able to recruit here at Penn State, but we want to be tough, smart and skilled.”

The Nittany Lions could use a fresh start offensively after last season. They finished 37th in Football Bowl Subdivision in total offense but were not even in the top 50 in scoring offense. Part of that is because they were one of the worst teams at converting redzone opportunities into touchdowns, and they committed the 20th-most turnovers.

It was a season that saw presumed starting quarterback Sean Clifford trade spots with Will Levis at times, though Clifford eventually solidified himself as the starter again at the end of the season. Levis has since transferred, leaving Clifford alone at the top of the depth chart in front of some unproven players, including incoming freshman Christian Veilleux.

Yurcich wasn’t willing to comment on specific players now, instead opting to wait until he sees them in spring practices. As an experienced quarterbacks coach, though, he does have certain credos to live by with his signal-callers.

“I don’t know what happened in the past, and I’m not here to judge that, right, wrong or indifferent, but what we’ll do moving forward is make sure that the quarterback, his eyes are right, he knows where he’s looking, where he needs to be looking and wherever we tell him based on whatever particular scheme that we’re running,” Yurcich said.

“So his focal point and his eyes are disciplined, and he’s always steady with how he progresses through his progressions, how he moves through his progressions. Next is his feet. He’s got to have a good platform. He’s got to transfer his weight. Those are things he can control — where our eyes are, our eye discipline, and our feet discipline.”

As for the particulars of Yurcich’s scheme, he was asked specifically about tempo and went deep into the values of going no-huddle, keeping opposing defenses offguard and tired.

He was also asked about playing under center, a longheld niche desire among a certain sect of Penn State fans, and he did describe the values of using a fullback and running more traditional play-action out of those offensive formations.

What can be expected for this offense now can be gleaned from what is already at Penn State. For all of Clifford’s struggles at the beginning of last season, he has still shown plenty of positive flashes, especially in 2019. The Nittany Lions’ receivers last season — Jahan Dotson, Parker Washington and KeAndre Lambert-Smith, among others — will be back in 2021.

Penn State’s running backs, devastated by injuries in 2020, also will be back.

That’s a solid core group of players for a new coach to inherit. Yurcich said Tuesday that he doesn’t plan to force them into an offense that doesn’t suit them.

“So you have to make sure that you’re asking the quarterback to do things that are within his skill set, and the same thing with every other position out there. Now, there certainly comes a time where you’re trying to make sure that the personnel that you’re recruiting fit into your system, but your system has to be adaptable to the talent level.”