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season is less an indictment of Ciarrocca than a reflection of Franklin's confi- dence in who Yurcich is and what he brings to the table. Simply put, Yurcich is in close alignment with the principles that Franklin believes are most crucial to playing winning football, and he has de- livered at every step of his coaching journey. To refresh, briefly, that philosophy in- cludes tenets from which everything else can flow. Offensively, the goal is to generate ex- plosive plays through the air and use the passing game to create openings for the running attack. The quarterback is the prime generator and an integral part of the equation, creating advantages with his legs and delivering the ball with ac- curacy to playmakers in space. The other priorities are to protect the football and avoid negative-yardage plays and penal- ties. Do that at a high level, consistently, with defense and special teams helping to create field position advantages, and the results will be favorable at this level of college football. Do it to the highest efficiency against the absolute best competition and, understanding the tiniest margin for error in those condi- tions, the highest levels of success will become possible. An oversimplification? Maybe, but it's rooted in an annual accounting of the best programs and how they reached that point. In modern college football, the teams that lead the year-end polls are the ones at the top of the scoring chart. The nation's highest-scoring team in 2019 was national champion LSU, fol- lowed by Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson. All of those teams topped 43 points per game. Not coincidentally, those high-scoring offenses were built around explosive passing attacks, with LSU (No. 2), Alabama (No. 3) and Clemson (No. 23) all finishing among the nation's best in the category. Ohio State at No. 36 was the only outlier in 2019. In 2020, all those trends continued. While the season shouldn't necessarily serve as a barometer due to the un- precedented circumstances under which it was played, the teams that fared best were the ones that you prob- ably expected, with Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State ranking fifth, sixth and 31st in passing offense, respectively. All were among the five highest-scoring teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, with averages above 43 points per game. Take a look, then, at where Yurcich's teams have ranked nationally in total of- fense during the past six years, a span that includes his last four seasons at Oklahoma State and his one-year stints at Ohio State and Texas: Scoring offense: 14th, 17th, 4th, 13th, The Nittany Lions lost players and had to prepare through a pandemic, and there were plenty of reasons why being a subpar football team was... a sign of the times. Whatever his legitimate credentials that made him seemingly an outstanding hire months prior, Ciarrocca didn't click in the abnormal environment the way he may have wanted to. In turn, the Nittany Lions' best strides throughout the year did not appear to be the product of much more than being good at a few things, and being not great at anything. If nothing else, his ability to translate his offense in the moment seemed limited. The reasons as to why were likely both in and out of his control. Whatever confluence of events led to [these] changes, the obstacle ahead – installation of a new offense – is the biggest hurdle between 2020's re- sults and 2021's hopes. BEN JONES STATECOLLEGE.COM With Dotson and Clifford set to return for their senior seasons and a plethora of young talent like slot receiver Parker Washington and running back Keyvone Lee, Yurcich has offensive weapons at his disposal. His past experience in the Big Ten and time spent working with some of college football's top quarterbacks is undeniably attractive for a Penn State team looking to maximize its potential and turn the corner on a season to forget. The bar is set high, as Ciarrocca learned over the course of this past year, and this decisive move by James Franklin shows that the Nittany Lions are willing to shake things up for a potentially brighter future. EVAN PATRICK THE DAILY COLLEGIAN Penn State's offensive coordinator change raises a question for which we likely won't get a clear answer: Did this happen because Mike Yurcich is James Franklin's guy or because Franklin realized Kirk Ciarrocca wasn't? A clear an- swer may not exist, which is to say that the truth is probably somewhere in be- tween. MIKE GROSS LANCASTERONLINE.COM Yurcich, who's about three years younger than James Franklin, clearly has a breadth of experience on the offensive side of the ball on multiple levels. Franklin explained in last week's announcement that he's extremely excited to welcome Yurcich, a coach "who sets records everywhere he has been as an of- fensive coordinator." The record-setting offensive mind will have a chance to prove what he can do for the Nittany Lions right off the bat in 2021. Penn State opens the season with a trip to Camp Randall Stadium to take on Wisconsin this fall. WILL PEGLER ONWARD STATE T H E M O N T H I N . . . O P I N I O N S

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