Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1340947
got points on 75.7 percent of their op- portunities, ranking 107th in the coun- try in red zone offense. In its 10 games, Texas generated 56 red zone opportunities and came away with 37 touchdowns and 11 field goals. The Longhorns' success rate – 85.7 percent – was tied for 43rd nationally. Raising that scoring percentage is going to be one of Yurcich's areas of em- phasis at PSU. "When you're in the red zone," he said, "you've got to come away with points, you've got to come away with touchdowns. "And then explosives are the other part of what we feel is very, very important and correlates to wins – being explosive, scoring and limiting turnovers. Those are the three things that are most im- portant from an explosiveness stand- point, statistically speaking." Yurcich has been refining his approach ever since taking his first full-time coaching job at Saint Francis (Ind.) in 1999. He started as running backs coach and ended three years later as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. After two years as a graduate assistant at Indiana, the Euclid, Ohio, native re- turned to the PSAC, spending six years at Edinboro, where he worked in his first season for former Illinois head coach Lou Tepper. He then spent two years at Shippensburg, where he helped the Raiders lead Di- vision II in total offense in 2012 with an average of 529.2 yards per game. Under his tutelage, quarterback Zach Zulli was named the top player in Division II. Yurcich's biggest career leap occurred in 2013, when he left the Raiders to join Mike Gundy's staff at Oklahoma State. There, he oversaw an offense that pro- pelled Mason Rudolph to the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award in 2017, a sea- son in which Rudolph topped 4,000 yards passing. One-year stints at Ohio State and Texas followed, as Yurcich de- veloped Justin Fields and Sam Ehlinger into two of the most productive quarter- backs in the country in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Along the way, Yurcich said he's learned to always be receptive to new ideas, whether they come from his fel- low coaches or from the players with whom he's working. "With anybody you work for, there are going to be influences, people you are going to learn from," he said. "You con- tinue to learn not just from the head coaches, but also the assistants. When we go recruit, we talk about the quarter- backs we've been able to coach, how for- tunate that I've been in my career. They're not just notches in the belt or resume-builders. You're also learning from those elite quarterbacks, learning a lot. Because once you've played a certain amount, going from high school into the college ranks, those quarterbacks are very smart. They understand the game very well. "I think a lot of time coaches, and peo- ple who perceive coaches, they think it's info coming out. I like to think that I re- ceive a lot of input, especially from the great quarterbacks who I've been so for- tunate to coach." ■ QB KEEPER Clifford was Penn State's second- leading rusher last sea- son, but Yurcich may not want him running quite so much given the Lions' depth situation at quar- terback. Photo courtesy of Penn State Athletics For the latest news on Penn State's o#-season, visit bwi.rivals.com.