Blue White Illustrated

Even the computer system that records live stats of the game couldn't keep up. The often-advertised, highly antici- pated up-tempo offense of new coordi- nator Joe Moorhead made its debut Saturday afternoon in front of 65,000 fans, and it did little to disappoint during Penn State's Blue-White Game. Beginning with the first action of the scrimmage – a seven-play drive from the Blue team that went 70 yards in fewer than three minutes, capped by a 15-yard touchdown pass from Trace McSorley to Chris Godwin – the new offense, or at least a portion of it, was put on display for all to see. From that first drive to the last, it helped the Blue offense score 37 points against the Nittany Lions' banged-up second-string defense, while Blue quarterback Trace McSorley racked up 281 yards and four touchdowns with only one interception. As the sophomore from Briar Woods, Va., said after the game, there might be even more to look forward to once the season begins. "You're always trying to go a little faster," he said. "We did a real good job today. We tried to stay in as many base tempos as we could. We didn't do a ton of freeze tempos and stuff like that, but we did a real good job. There's definitely op- portunity [to build]." Following the conclusion of 15 spring practice sessions, head coach James Franklin estimated that 95 percent of Moorhead's offensive system has been installed, but the portions that remain to be implemented are some of the more complicated aspects of the scheme. With a no-huddle approach, Moorhead and the QB have the ability to slow the game down or speed it up, depending on the defense they are facing. Moorhead not only will work in new concepts from now to September's opener, but he'll also introduce alternative paces of play in order to keep the opponent guessing. One of his priorities has been to make sure that he's not giving his players too much too soon. He's taking a deliberate approach to installing the of- fense so that the quarterbacks and the rest of the players won't feel over- whelmed with options before they've been able to digest the information at hand. What fans saw on Saturday – a 411-yard effort by the starting unit – is just scratching the surface. "We were very judicious in our ap- proach," Moorhead said. "There are maybe things in year four at Fordham [where he coached most recently] that we were doing that we didn't want to install right away. There are certain aspects available to the offense that we have the ability to add on that we're not doing right now. The base foundation of the offense is installed." It might have been a simplistic ap- proach in the spring scrimmage, but Moorhead wanted to be sure players grasped the basic portions of his system before adding the more complicated parts. And in Saturday's performance from both McSorley and counterpart Tommy Stevens, that's what Moorhead witnessed. While McSorley was 19 yards shy of the 300 mark, Stevens threw for 100 yards on 10 completions. "They did a tremendous job with the three things that we've identified that are necessary for success: how well they pre- pared, how hard they played and how well they executed," Moorehad said. "I think from a ground-zero perspective of having zero knowledge of the offense, only going through it for 15 practices, they made big incremental steps every day. It was good to see them come in front of a big crowd in a game-day atmosphere and be able to execute." And for most of the game, which had 12-minute quarters and a run- ning clock, they did it at a rapid pace, and it wasn't only the com- puter systems in the press box that couldn't keep up. The defense on the op- posite side of the line of scrimmage had fits matching the rate of play. Illustrating the stress that Moorhead's offense can put on a defense, late in the second quarter one of Penn State's backup defensive linemen was seen vomiting from an apparent case of ex- haustion. A moment that most wanted to turn away from energized the offense. "It's huge for us knowing that we can do that to a defense, just from our tempo and with our guys up front," McSorley said. "Not only is it a big boost for an of- fense, but for an offensive line it's so much easier for them to block a dude who is tired and gassed than it is a dude who is energized and juiced up every play. For them, they love it up front. They see that and everyone turns around and is high-fiving each other and slapping each other. It's kind of like in our mind, now we've got them. Now we have the upper hand. And that's what we want to do with this tempo." A P R I L 1 6 , 2 0 1 6 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 6 Fast forward Penn State's up-tempo offense gets results in the Blue-White Game T I M   O W E N   | O W E N . T I M . B W I @ G M A I L . C O M SPRING FLINGS Moorhead watches backup quarter- back Billy Fessler warm up prior to the game. Photo by Steve Manuel

• Cover