Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/651663
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

