Tag: Minnesota Penn State Football

PJ Fleck loses key “oarsman” Kirk Ciarrocca at Minnesota

Kirk Ciarrocca leaves PJ Fleck, creating uncertainty in Minnesota

The Wisconsin Badgers woke up on the feast of Stephen and noticed that the Minnesota Golden Gophers — who will try to spend the 2020s bumping the Badgers off their perch atop the Big Ten West — don’t have an offensive coordinator for the time being. Kirk Ciarrocca, who has been with P.J. Fleck at Western Michigan and Minnesota, left the Gophers to join James Franklin at Penn State.

Coaching moves aren’t guaranteed to succeed or fail, but on the surface of things, the fact that Fleck will have to change coordinators after several years with a trusted lieutenant seems suboptimal for the Gophers. More than the loss of continuity on his staff, though, Fleck has to deal with the reality that Ciarrocca generally developed wide receivers:

The Badgers saw Ciarrocca’s offense before Ciarrocca went to Minnesota. Wisconsin played — and contained — Ciarrocca’s offense in the 2017 Cotton Bowl when P.J. Fleck was at Western Michigan. Watching Ciarrocca stay in the Big Ten Conference is not a good thing for Wisconsin. Watching Ciarrocca leave the Big Ten West, however, is definitely a good thing for the Badgers. Minnesota needs every ounce of leverage it can get in its burgeoning battle with the Badgers for Big Ten West supremacy. Maybe Fleck will somehow find a coordinator on par with Ciarrocca. Yet, given how successful Fleck has been the past several years with Ciarrocca by his side, this surely isn’t what Fleck had in mind for his offseason. It is not what he planned or hoped for.

Could Fleck successfully adjust? If he is the caliber of coach many people think he is, he will… but we don’t know just how good Fleck is. We are only beginning to get a fuller measure of him, and given how thoroughly he got schooled by Jim Leonhard and Paul Chryst a month ago, anything which disrupts Minnesota’s momentum is a genuine threat to a sustained Fleck ascendance in Minneapolis. Stay tuned for Minnesota’s hire of a replacement for Kirk Ciarrocca. The Big Ten coaching carousel season just became a lot more interesting.

Kirk Ciarrocca to Penn State is a coup for the Nittany Lions

Big news in Big Ten football

The Wisconsin Badgers just watched the landscape shift in the Big Ten. How that landscape will change is still an open question, but when a high-profile offensive coordinator changes schools within the same conference, it is a big story. When that coordinator changes divisions in the conference, it is a big story.

The news broke Thursday morning: Minnesota Golden Gophers offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca agreed to become the new offensive coordinator for James Franklin at Penn State, after Ricky Rahne left Happy Valley to become the new head coach at Old Dominion.

The Wisconsin defense and coordinator Jim Leonhard shut down Ciarrocca’s attack in a 38-17 win over the Gophers on Nov. 30. Nevertheless, Ciarrocca — who had been with P.J. Fleck at both Western Michigan and Minnesota — certainly helped Fleck rise to the top of the coaching profession. Ciarrocca just as clearly enabled Minnesota to substantially improve in 2019. In particular, the Gophers beat Penn State and James Franklin. Now, Franklin has snagged Ciarrocca.

We live in a volatile time in the coaching industry — not just in terms of the constant turnover of jobs every coaching carousel, but in terms of hires defying expectations. So many people (myself included) thought Jim Harbaugh would crush it at Michigan. Nope.

So many people (myself included) thought Tom Herman would do really well at Texas. Nope. So many people (myself included) thought Ed Orgeron would fail at LSU. Nope. So many people (myself included) thought Willie Taggart would do reasonably well at Florida State. Nope, nope, nope. Given this reality, home-run hires on paper don’t necessarily become reality. Caution is warranted in predicting how hires will fare at new stops.

That said, it is hard to deny that Franklin got a good coordinator and upgraded the position from Rahne.

If you watched Minnesota beat Penn State, and if you watched Minnesota thrive until it faced Iowa and Wisconsin late in the 2019 season, you know that the Golden Gophers got a lot of production out of their receivers. Penn State got a lot of production out of its receivers under former offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead, who helped Franklin reach the Rose Bowl and win the Fiesta Bowl before moving to Mississippi State. If Ciarrocca merely comes close to matching Moorhead, Penn State will become MORE of a threat to Ohio State in the Big Ten East. Michigan will have a harder time passing PSU.

The good news for Wisconsin in 2020: The Badgers don’t face Penn State in their East crossover games. UW plays Indiana, Michigan, and Maryland in the three East games.