Sunday Column: Will Andy’s Version of the Offense Fulfill Penn State’s Wildest Dreams?

Writing a Penn State football column based on a (series of) Taylor Swift song(s) is akin to bringing an opera fan to a monster truck rally, but it’s August, and the season can’t start soon enough. The most popular pop artist in the world is currently in the midst of her Eras Tour, a tribute to the various evolutions of her music.

With Penn State about to kick off a season with its sixth offensive coordinator in the last 10 years, it’s worth looking back at the differences between the Nittany Lions’ offensive eras and what clues they might provide on how 2024 might go. With apologies to Taylor Swift Penn State fans no one, here goes nothing.

The Donovan Era (2014-15)

The first couple offenses of the James Frankin regime had a lot of things working against them from the outset—namely, a lack of depth and talent on the offensive line and a major disconnect (perhaps even some Bad Blood) between Donovan, Franklin, and incumbent quarterback Christian Hackenberg, whose skills were better suited for Bill O’Brien’s pro-style system than the offense Donovan and Franklin had imported from Vanderbilt. But these two years were ugly just the same, with the Nittany Lions topping 30 points just five times in 26 games, and prompted the first of what would become many big staff changes for the offense.

The Moorhead Era (2016-17)

After a long night of talkin’ ball, Franklin decided to hire Joe Moorhead, who had done some great stuff at Fordham, and he brought a Fearless approach that made opposing defenses pick their poison. With one of those poisons being Saquon Barkley and the others including Chris Godwin, Mike Gesicki and the equally fearless Trace McSorley, the offense enjoyed its best football of the Franklin Era, with explosive plays and clutch plays alike. Unfortunately, Moorhead parlayed the success into a head coaching position at Mississippi State, leading to …

The Rahne Era (2018-19)

The now-Old Dominion head coach wasn’t the Anti-Hero that some fans made him out to be, as on his watch the Lions averaged more than 200 yards on the ground in 2018 and were a few key blocks on a fourth-down play fans remember All Too Well from toppling Ohio State at home that season. Having McSorley to bridge the gap certainly helped, as did playmakers like K.J. Hamler and Pat Freiermuth, but it’s hard to say the offense had the same ceiling under Rahne as it did under Moorhead. He too was able to leverage the work into a head coaching job, ushering in the oddest and most depressing era of the last few years.

The Ciarrocca Era (2020)

After commanding reasonably competent offenses at Minnesota, Kirk Ciarrocca joined Penn State in December of 2019, about three months before all hell broke loose. Some teams handled the pandemic better than others, and after a brutal gut-punch loss at Indiana when play finally resumed in late October, Penn State could not Shake It Off, dropping the next four games as well. The issues that season were more on the defensive side of the ball but Ciarrocca’s Style never quite took with a Sean Clifford-led unit that was without Pat Freiermuth for most of the year.

The Yurcich Era (2021-23)

Yurcich had some Penn State fans Enchanted by the gaudy numbers his offenses had put up at Texas and Oklahoma State, but his offenses, with Clifford at the helm for the first two years and then prized recruit Drew Allar at QB for the third, came to summarize Penn State as a team during that stretch — one step forward, two steps any which way but forward. He was hamstrung by a lack of receiving firepower last season but the showings against Ohio State and Michigan were fireable offenses on their own regardless of what he had accomplished in previous seasons.

The Kotelnicki Era (2024-??)

Slightly over a Fortnight after Yurcich was fired in early November, Franklin hired Andy Kotelnicki away from Kansas, where he helped the Jayhawks average more yards per play in 2022 than any team but Ohio State. He had also directed Buffalo to a top-five offense during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season while the Nittany Lions were floundering under Ciarrocca.

A look back over these varied eras reveals some commonalities during both the high and low points. The Nittany Lions were at their best offensively when they had both a quarterback with some running ability, as has been the case throughout Franklin’s entire coaching career, and when they matched that with a playcaller who knew how to both probe the soft spots of opposing defenses and, perhaps more importantly, make in-game adjustments. They struggled when they had more of a pocket-style passer and faced defenses with as much or more athleticism as they had. In every era, Penn State has had difficulty closing out tight games with its offense, putting undue pressure on defenses both sturdy and soft.

Interestingly, one of Kotelnicki’s strengths is his heavy and effective use of RPOs, which Moorhead had utilized with great success here (Ciarrocca and Yurcich ran them as well, with not as much success). The difference, of course, is that Moorhead had the shifty McSorley, who wasn’t going to win any 100-meter dashes but never seemed to take a big hit. Kotelnicki has the 6-foot-5 Allar, who is an athlete and a willing runner but a much bigger target without the sort of elusiveness McSorley brought to the field.