Blue White Illustrated

P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> practice and thinking ahead to the 2020 season. But this year? There's no spring practice to evaluate, and there's no clear path forward given that any attempt to resume preparations for the season will be contingent on how long it takes to contain the outbreak and to develop a testing process that would inhibit a resurgence once the current social dis- tancing restrictions are eased. Under James Franklin, Penn State's football staff has prided itself on its abil- ity to anticipate problems and respond quickly when they arise. The Nittany Lions have contingencies for contingen- cies, but the coronavirus crisis was one scenario for which no one was prepared. Said Franklin, "I will admit that this was something I didn't have a plan for." Still, after the severity of the crisis became apparent, Franklin and his staff quickly regrouped. They planned indi- vidualized training regimens for their players based on how much access they had to fitness equipment at home. Team nutritionists worked with players on new dietary plans, again taking into account individual circumstances. And once those efforts were under way, the staff began developing a set of plans for how they would approach the rest of the off-season if the outbreak abates to the point where football can be re- sumed. "We had already worked on about six different models – if we were able to get back in a month, if we were able to get back in six weeks, in two months, whatever the time period was, and we W hen Penn State hired Kirk Ciarrocca away from Minnesota in December, the focus was on the new o;ensive co- ordinator's adaptability. Head coach James Franklin wanted some fresh ideas but didn't want to impose an- other school's o;ense on his own, which had averaged 35.8 points in 2019. It appears as though Franklin is get- ting exactly what he wanted. As Ciarrocca explained recently, the system he's installing at Penn State is not a Minnesota lookalike. It isn't even a Minnesota soundalike. "We came up with a whole new set of communication and terminology that's di;erent from Minnesota," Ciarrocca said. "The players from Minnesota, if they walked into our meeting, they wouldn't understand the jargon that we're using." The Nittany Lions "got a lot done" on the installation of their new o;ense before the coronavirus crisis put col- lege football on an inde:nite hiatus, Ciarrocca said. "We put the system in before this happened. We had put together the system as a group," he said. "The great thing about it – and I'm sure it was one of the reasons Coach [Franklin] ended up selecting me to be the o;ensive co- ordinator at Penn State – is that the philosophies were the same and there were a lot of similarities between the two systems already. That's one of the reasons why I felt that when Coach of- fered me the job, this would be a smooth transition. I knew that our philosophies were in line and that this wasn't going to be like they were speaking English and we were going to come in and teach them how to speak French. "We're already speaking the same language, have the same beliefs. We just built a system that we feel will put our players in the best position to be successful and take advantage of the talents and skill sets that we have at Penn State, which is always your goal no matter where you're coaching at. Every single year in the o;-season, you're analyzing your personnel and trying to build your system [in a way that] accentuates [players'] strengths and limits their weaknesses." One of the strengths of Penn State's o;ense since 2016 has been the dual- threat nature of its quarterbacks. Trace McSorley :nished his career with 1,697 rushing yards, the most by a quarter- back in school history. His successor, Sean Cli;ord, :nished his :rst season as the Lions' starter with 402 rushing yards, ranking third on the team behind Journey Brown and Noah Cain. Clif- ford's backup, Will Levis, was sixth with 213 yards. The obvious drawback to using quar- terbacks as frequent ball carriers is that it exposes them to a higher risk of in- jury. While he didn't miss any starts, McSorley was banged up by the end of his senior season, and Cli;ord was forced to sit out last year's regular-sea- son :nale against Rutgers because of an injury he su;ered a week earlier at Ohio State. At Minnesota last season, Ciarrocca didn't ask Tanner Morgan to do much running. During his redshirt sopho- more season, Morgan was credited with 61 carries for minus-57 yards. Morgan was listed at 6-foot-2, 215 pounds last year, not all that much smaller than Clifford, who stands 6-2, 219. But Ciarrocca lauded the physical development of both Clifford and the 6-3, 231-pound Levis, noting that their progress in the weight room has helped them absorb punishment. And he said that quarterback runs will continue to be an element of Penn State's offense. "We'd be crazy not to run our quar- Ciarrocca's offense taking shape despite hurdles |

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