Blue White Illustrated

April 2016

Penn State Sports Magazine

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Moorhead is looking for, the choice will likely come down to which one is able to make the pre- and post-snap reads that are crucial to his West Coast-style of- fense. Don't expect any answers here until August. 2 How are the new coordina- tors going to change the operation of Penn State's o%ense and defense? Pry laid out the best-case scenario re- cently when he said that Moorhead's of- fense was going to help improve the Nit- tany Lions' outlook on both sides of the ball. During an appearance on WBLF Radio's "Zone Coverage" show, the Li- ons' new defensive co- ordinator explained that by facing a spread of- fense in practice every day, his defense would be better prepared for some of the more potent Big Ten oppo- nents on the schedule. "When you see that o;ense every day in practice, you can work through some things," Pry said. "You don't need a ballgame to :g- ure out what you want to do and can do well." There's also some comfort in the real- ization that Pry is not spearheading a radical makeover. He spent five years as one of Shoop's lieutenants, including three seasons at Vanderbilt, before be- ing named Penn State's defensive coor- dinator in January. The Lions do have some major concerns on Pry's side of the ball, obviously, but those concerns involve personnel. The Lions need their incoming juco linemen to be ready to contribute, and they need their seven scholarship linebackers to stay healthy, because the reinforcements at that po- sition group probably aren't going to arrive until 2017. Schematically, how- ever, the transition is likely to be smooth. But as for the relationship between the o;ense and defense and how the changes to the former are likely to im- pact the latter, there is another way of looking at the ripple e;ect, and it isn't quite so rosy. One of the risks in running a high- speed o;ense is that when you aren't churning up yardage and scoring touch- downs, you're giving the ball right back to the opponent. Need an example of this feast-or- famine dichotomy? Check out Oregon. With Marcus Mariota o; to the NFL, the Ducks were the most schizophrenic team in the Football Bowl Subdivision last year. Mariota's successor was grad- uate transfer Vernon Adams Jr., and when he was healthy, the Ducks were one of the best teams in the country. They posted victories over both of the participants in last year's Pac-12 cham- pionship game – Stanford and USC – and came within four points of upset- ting eventual Big Ten champion Michi- gan State in East Lansing. But when Adams was hurt, Oregon was probably one of college football's worst teams. It lost by 42 points to Utah and by seven to Washington State, both at home. And then came the Alamo Bowl. With Adams leading the way, the Ducks built a 31-0 hal

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