Sunday Column: Yurcich Enters Pivotal Year 2 With Plenty to Prove

There will be a lot of Penn State players on the field and coaches on the sideline with a lot to prove this fall.

Perhaps none more than Mike Yurcich.

A year ago, just as many Penn State fans (if not several more) worried that State College would be a mere pit stop for Yurcich en route to a major head coaching job as those who worried that he might not be able to tighten up what had been a talented but inconsistent Nittany Lion offense in 2020. After an encouraging start to the season during which Penn State was carried most often by its defense, the wheels wobbled and spun off, the team dropping six of its final eight contests. Coaches and players from offense, defense and special teams shared responsibility for that, but the offense was undoubtedly the biggest disappointment, with some ugly stats that matched the failed eye test.

Penn State finished 80th or worse in the nation in rushing offense (118th), total offense (82nd), red-zone offense (97th) and scoring offense (90th) last season, stats that harkened back to the early sanction days.

Those were not the sort of numbers those inside or outside the program envisioned when James Franklin made the bold decision to move on from Kirk Ciarrocca after just one season and bring in Yurcich, who had been wildly successful at stops in Stillwater, Columbus and Austin. Sure, some transition bumps were expected; Yurcich’s point man, QB1 Sean Clifford, was learning his third offensive system in as many years, the running back room had some health issues and the offensive line group wasn’t loaded with depth.

But the Nittany Lions had Jahan Dotson, arguably the program’s most electric receiver since Allen Robinson, who was all but uncoverable on a weekly basis; solid supporting weapons in Parker Washington and KeAndre Lambert-Smith; and a defense that repeatedly put them in good positions on the field and on the scoreboard.

And yet … well, you all saw it.

So what went wrong? Well, a lot. And though much of it — Clifford’s mid-season injury and recurring accuracy issues; a lack of push from the offensive line and explosiveness from the running backs — cannot be placed on Yurcich alone, his job dictates that he makes the machine run even if he isn’t manufacturing all the parts or not all of them, or even most of them, are performing to code.

To call the season a complete failure or to say there weren’t encouraging signs for the future would not be accurate. There were both examples of Yurcich scheming up terrific plans for a particular defense and of the Nittany Lions executing those game plans just about every week. There were examples of successful in-game adjustments in most weeks.

Problem is, at the level Penn State plays or aspires to play at, you have to execute for all four quarters. The best teams spend more time capitalizing on opponents’ mistakes than they do recovering from their own mistakes. On far too many Saturdays last fall, the Nittany Lions could not get out of their own way — a penalty at an inopportune moment bogged down an important drive, a 2nd-and-1 becoming a 4th-and-2, and then a turnover on downs. There was a continuous sense that, even in wins, the offense was leaving meat on the bone. Maybe it wasn’t ever going to be a world-class offense, or even one good enough, even teamed with an outstanding defense, to win a Big Ten title. But the pieces were there to convert more than one 2-point conversion in seven overtime tries against Illinois, or to score more than one touchdown in five trips inside Michigan’s 30-yard line, and Penn State could not deliver.

The coaches know all this, of course, and felt it and have brooded over it more than even the most die-hard fans. The question is what are they going to do about it. During a recent chat with beat reporters, Yurcich maintained that he would rather focus — at least in terms of public discussion — on the season ahead than the season behind, which is understandable even if the season behind wasn’t as disappointing as the one his team just experienced.

The major keys will include, as Yurcich pointed out in that media appearance, helping Clifford become more “fluid” in his progressions, which, at least in theory, will come with time and familiarity with the concepts and system. It’ll be making sure the running game is either a hell of a lot more effective — a key objective for every offensive coach this offseason — or, if it’s not or only marginally so, adjusting the playcalling around it. Mostly, it will be finding ways to get his players to be more consistent, from both week to week and play to play. Again, Yurcich will need help from all 11 guys on the field, all of his fellow position coaches, and from his boss, to get this offense from a volatile but unreliable unit to one truly feared by opposing defenses. His track record suggests he’s capable. The highly ranked quarterbacks he has helped recruit suggest his current and future players believe he’s capable, which is just as important.

But he has to actually do it, because it is a prove-it year for the program, and because a lot of the fans would love to get back to worrying if he’ll wind up leaving for a head-coaching job.