Knowing Joe Moorhead: Penn State’s new offensive coordinator, according to his former players, staff

Every day for seven years, and at various institutions, one of the first people Fordham offensive coordinator Andrew Breiner saw was Joe Moorhead.

“Seven years. We used to joke that it was a common-law marriage in New York,” laughed Breiner, on Tuesday evening.

“Yesterday was our divorce.”

Moorhead was announced as Penn State football’s new offensive coordinator on Saturday, and the 42-year-old headed to State College shortly after.

“Today is literally the first day I’ve been at work in seven years that I’m not working with Coach Moorhead,” said Breiner. “Saying goodbye to him was tough.”

Moorhead zipped up his blue Penn State jacket on Wednesday and sat, hands clasped tightly together, face relaxed and contemplative as he addressed media for the first time in his new role, just a day or so removed from saying goodbye to his team and former personnel. A source told the Centre Daily Times that when he did speak to the team on Saturday, before the announcement was made official, the players already knew the news and gave him a standing ovation as he walked into the room. It was described emotionally, but Moorhead showed nothing but cool composure on Wednesday — until a reporter asked him if it was tough to leave Fordham.

Then, there was a brief break in the pomp and polish of an introductory presser; a small look at how it must have pained him to tell his staff and players he would be leaving them.

He looked down, wrung his hands and refolded his fingers, and gave the humorless laugh people do when they’re asked a tough question, and must respond despite its difficulty.

“It was an incredibly difficult decision, because of the success we had the past four years and that’s certainly attributable to our players and our coaching staff,” he said. “There have been (other) opportunities for me to leave Fordham. I had an offer last year at the FBS-level and had some other things the year before. As I told the players and the kids we were recruiting, for me to leave Fordham, it was going to have to be a special, special opportunity at the FBS level and obviously the offensive coordinator job is one of those opportunities.”

One of those players he spoke with was running back Chase Edmonds, a Pennsylvania native like Moorhead, who went to Central Dauphin East but was widely unrecruited out of high school. Now, Edmonds is a 3,000-yard back with prodigious skill.

“I knew that this day would come for coach Moorhead,” said Edmonds. “He’s going to bring (Penn State) the spread offense, and I think it’ll work really well with Saquon Barkley down there at running back. Coach Moorhead’s offense is really based on a balanced attack, but you’ve really got to have football players with high IQs.”

Edmonds said any running back with high-caliber talent would love the zone schemes Moorhead employs on the ground. The coach’s style is about tempo, yes, but it’s also about patience, he said.

“It’s not more of a downhill run. It’s definitely more patience in the offensive scheme. And sometimes it’s more important to miss the first cut because the second will be a home run.”

To Breiner, Moorhead’s style is about “simplistic sophistication.”

It’s a productive-by-nature offense that’s very straightforward at its base, but one that gets more abstruse to opposing defenses as the IQs and abilities of the players at his disposal adapt to fit into the scheme and its various options — and there are many.

That might be a reflection of Moorhead himself.

Breiner, another Pennsylvanian who went to Lock Haven University, said that while Moorhead is highly intelligent and adaptable, and can keep pace in a conversation with anyone from athletic directors to young players, he’s at his root just a normal, genuine guy.

“There’s a sense of that very early on, in the first conversation you have with him,” said Breiner. “In this profession, there’s obviously ego involved. And Joe, of course he has an ego and is confident in what he’s doing. But he’s extremely humble. We joke that he’s a blue-collar ‘yinzer’ from Pittsburgh. That’s really who he is. He’s just ‘Joe, from Pittsburgh.’

“He’s beloved by all, and I think the reason for that is how he carries himself. And more than that, I think it’s probably the effort he puts into establishing relationships and maintaining relationships ... He genuinely makes an effort in getting to know people, and he wants to develop not just the player, but the person too.”

Like Michael Nebrich, who quarterbacked Fordham during its rise in status in the FCS in 2013-14.

Nebrich was originally committed to the University of Connecticut after being recruited through high school by Moorhead, who was the Huskies’ offensive coordinator at the time.

He played here and there during his his first year at UConn, led by head coach Randy Edsall, made its first BCS Bowl appearance at the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma in 2011.

Edsall left for Maryland right after the game, and Moorhead went to Fordham in 2012. Then, Nebrich decided to transfer to Fordham himself. His choice was based partially Moorhead’s offensive scheme, for which the young quarterback was originally recruited, but it was mostly based on Moorhead himself.

“When Coach Edsall left it obviously didn’t work out (for me) there,” said Nebrich. “So (myself and Moorhead) kind of took a chance on doing the things we wanted to at Fordham, and that’s exactly what we did … When Edsall did leave, the fact that (Moorhead) was still there, that gave me hope with the connection that we had and the kind of person he is, that maybe things would work out.

“The guy has made me 100 percent commit to two different schools, and I have no regrets about it because at Fordham, I had fun playing football for him. I consider him family now, and he’ll be like family for the rest of my life.”

Moorhead posted a 38-13 record as the head coach of the Rams, and last season Nebrich was the Patriot League Player of the Year as well as a third team All-American. The head coach capitalized on the effectiveness of his “simplistic sophistication”-described offense with its West Coast roots, and Nebrich said his former coach’s explosive, no-huddle, play-action style is going to be a refreshing jolt to a stuffy conference, if he has the right athletes for it.

“I’ve watched a good amount of Penn State games,” said Nebrich, who is good friends with Nittany Lions receiver Matt Zanellato. “I’ve seen the way that their offense does things, and I can see it being conservative. A lot of the Big Ten offenses, that’s what they do.

“And Coach Moorhead’s offense is going to completely break the mold of that.”

This story was originally published December 16, 2015 at 8:29 PM with the headline "Knowing Joe Moorhead: Penn State’s new offensive coordinator, according to his former players, staff."