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success. So that's the first thing that drew me to it. "The second criteria I had was that if I was going to leave the University of Minnesota, I was going to go to a school where I thought we had a chance to win the national championship. Penn State met both of those things." Ciarrocca brings to PSU 18 years of ex- perience as an offensive coordinator, the past seven as an assistant to P.J. Fleck at Minnesota and Western Michigan. This past year, Minnesota averaged 34.1 points per game to rank 21st in the Football Bowl Subdivision and third in the Big Ten. In Morgan's first full season as the Gophers' starting quarterback, he led the Big Ten in passing with an average of 247.9 yards per game and was second in pass efficiency with a 180.4 rating. Named to the sec- ond-team All-Big Ten squad, the redshirt sophomore threw 28 touchdown passes and only six interceptions. The Gophers also had a pair of 1,000- yard wide receivers in Rashod Bateman and Tyler Johnson. Bateman won All- America honors and was named Big Ten Receiver of the Year, while Johnson was a first-team All-Big Ten honoree. And with Minnesota enjoying one of the best seasons in school history, Ciarrocca was selected as a semifinalist for the Broyles Award, which goes to the nation's top assistant coach. Prior to leaving for Minnesota, Ciar- rocca was Fleck's offensive coordinator at Western Michigan for four seasons. His offense set records for points, total yards and touchdowns in 2015, then smashed those records the following year. The Broncos finished ninth in the Football Bowl Subdivision in points per game (41.57) in 2016, as they won the Mid-American Conference and earned a spot in the Cotton Bowl. Before his tenure at Western Michigan, Ciarrocca coached at Delaware (2012 – running backs), Richmond (2011 – quar- terbacks) and Rutgers (2008-10 – co- offensive coordinator and quarterbacks). He spent six years as offensive coordina- tor and quarterbacks coach at Delaware from 2002-07, helping lead the Blue Hens to a Division I-AA national cham- pionship in 2003 and mentoring future Super Bowl-winning quarterback Joe Flacco. In 2007, his final season at the school, the Blue Hens ranked in the top 10 nationally in scoring, total offense, passing offense, third down conversion rate and red zone offense. Ciarrocca told GoPSUSports that he expects to mesh well with his new team as he gets acclimated in the weeks and months to come. "One of the things that attracted me to this job, and also at- tracted Coach Franklin to me," he said, "was that there's a lot of common ground there to begin with, from a philosophical standpoint, and from a scheme standpoint." Ciarrocca's hiring was the first of sev- eral changes to Penn State's coaching staff. On Dec. 31, the Nittany Lions an- nounced that Matt Limegrover's con- tract would not be renewed. Limegrover had been in charge of the Nittany Lions' offensive front since the 2016 season. While they had enjoyed some success in recent years, including a 396-yard rush- ing outburst against Memphis in the Cotton Bowl last month, the team had struggled to move the ball on the ground in some of its biggest games, and its 32 sacks this past season were the fourth- highest total in the Big Ten. OFFENSIVE MINDED Ciarrocca (above) was P.J. Fleck's of- fensive coor- dinator at Western Michigan and Minnesota before leaving for PSU. Trautwein (left) spent the past two seasons at Boston Col- lege. Photos courtesy of Minnesota, Boston Col- lege

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