An Interview with Joe Moorhead, Oregon's new Offensive Coordinator

Welcome to the solid verbal.

Hell for me, I'm a man, I'm forty.

I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. You want to be happy for a day? Edith State is that woo woom?

And Dan and Tye.

Welcome back to the solid Verbal Boys and girls. My name is ty Hill, the brand that guy over there. My good friend Dan Rubinstein, still in sunny southern California. Happy Friday, June the nineteenth. Thank you for stopping on, Bye for coming on back to talk more college football. We announced it on the Wednesday show we'd be dropping a show this Friday. Friday has come.

Dan and uh, I'm excited about today's show. Well, certainly, Tye, I am as well. And that's for a number of reasons. One, we get to nerd out. I get to nerd out over I guess Oregon football, but not really just offense in general, x's and O stuff in general. Joe moorehead joining the show. Very excited to catch with him. We spoke to him a couple of years ago. But perhaps even more importantly for me, ty I just took a coffee.

Well, if you are tuning in for the first time or one of many times, please do subscribe to the show. You can find us out on Spotify, on Apple, on Google, anywhere you get podcasts. You can find the solid verbal we are ramping up. Go back and listen to Wednesday, or subscribe to the newsletter we sent it out there as well. You can also follow it along with all the fun we're having out on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter right now. We're also going to be doing some

Yeah, and I would also stress that our show is intended to be listened to at normal speed. Every so often we get an email from somebody saying, did you guys smoke a lot or drink a lot because you're slewing your words? Or sometimes we'll get an email that says, ty, you gotta slow down. Dan, you're going a mile a minute and we really need you to pause between sentences. And it turns out there listening at two or three times.

Yeah, you don't know how that happens. It has happened to me using various apps. But every now and again, you're right. We got one a couple weeks ago. Gentlemen listened and said, Dan, you talk too fast. You got to slow it down. You're broadcasters. You seem like you're talking normal speed to me. And yeah, sometimes technology please tricks on us. That's part of the beauty in it. On today's show, we're going to discuss some news tidbits, and then we're going to get into a wonderful interview.

Yeah?

I think so.

Sure.

I'm not going to yell breaking news because I'm just I'm not feeling it today, not feeling that chippery yet, but we got to introduce the sound back in and get things started off on the right foot. Serious subject though, to start here. Thirteen Texas players have tested positive for COVID nineteen. All thirteen of them are now self isolating. Ten more players were identified through contact tracing. They're also

Going to be a whole new situation. But at least right now, when you have this voluntary workout period, that there are medical steps being taken that can be honed and crafted to best protect athletes. That's to me the silver lining that you know, there can be some sort of well oiled machine by the time things get pretty serious.

Yeah, and again I hate to keep saying it, but truly, we'll see, We'll see where this goes. We hope everyone that contracted this is on the road on the mend, on the road to recovery, because scary thing obviously been very much in the news here, And hope everyone feels better soon. Elsewhere in the world of college football, we have Florida making an announcement they are going to stop the gatorbait cheer and associated band performance. There's a racist

To cease that, which I think is a good move.

Yeah, it seems to me make sense. I know, there's always going to be pushback and there's going to be people out there questioning, like all this sports are canceled pretty much, you can't say these very basic, unoffending, non offending things. I actually thought our Powell Richard Johnson put it really succinctly that Florida out of nowhere created a new tradition with Tom Petty, the Tom Petty song they played between the third and fourth flowers. It's won't back down.

Totally good, totally good, all right.

And AIA schools are prohibited from playing before September the twelfth, which means there have been and some scheduling changes, some cancelations. We had Southern against Tennessee State, we had Jackson State against Tennessee State, and Southern against Florida A and M on September the twelfth. Those games have I guess, been what straight up canceled.

Now they've been straight up canceled. It's something worth monitoring, at least for the short term. Obviously, smaller schools are going to have less in the way of resources health wise, and so they're taking precautions. I just I hope everything works out time. That's all I'm hoping for, and I'm hoping everybody stays as safe as humanly possible. But yeah, those are our first real major cancelations that we've seen,

Elsewhere in scheduling news, we have news that Ohio State and Alabama have scheduled a home and home dan Yeah man in twenty twenty seven and twenty twenty eight. I did the math. Nick Saban would be seventy five years old for the first of these games.

Yeah.

Will he still be at Alabama when he's seventy five years old?

I don't think so.

I think.

What a Billy Napier, Luke Fickle matchup, Matt Campbell, Jeremy Pruitt or Mario Christobal matchup. It I couldn't see either coach, especially if Ryan Day continues his trajectory at this point and having the brief NFL past he has. It feels like a two different coach matchup. By the way, though Ty, this is all burying the most important part of this, which is hell yeah, hell yeah in Alabama playing at home

Yep, yep, I'm looking at it right now here. I'm doing some backup the Napkin math, and if I am correct, yeah, we'll be in our forties. But this could potentially be a matchup between a fifty seven year old Dabo Sweeney and a oh my god, thirty five year old Tommy Reese.

Never know whoaver know?

Good math, Ty, good math. And then I think I saw Wazoo and Mississippi State have scheduled a home and home twenty thirty two thirty.

I will not be there for that game. No say that much.

Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and agree with you on that one tie.

Yeah, he won't be there.

And finally, for our new segment this evening, Duke's Mayonnaise. Initially I read this as the school Duke They're mayonnaise, But apparently Duke's Mayonnaise is a brand.

What do you mean? Apparently? Come on?

I didn't know that.

Really, you didn't know Duke's Mayo. It's a famous mayo brand. I never heard of Duke's. I've heard of Helman's. Wait until I introduced it a Japanese Mayo tie.

New title sponsor of the regular season college football game and postseason bowl game played in Charlotte. They are taking over for Belk, which means Dan that on September the twenty sixth, at Bank of America Stadium, the Duke's Mayo Classic will feature Wake Forest and the Notre Dame fighting Irish So great. I've been part and part sold to a Pinstripe Bowl, and now it looks like I'm going to get a Duke's Mayo Classic that I can talk about as well.

Somebody send us a Duke's Mayo Classic hat, Please, please please. I don't know I they're gonna be selling them in bookstores for what is it, late September, a late September matchup, but please do send it to us. And it's too bad Mike Elco is not a part of it, having made that journey from Winston Salem to South Bend.

The Duke's Mayo Bowl will be held at Bank of America Stadium as well. Obviously we'll figure out who plays in that game, typically between teams from the ACC and the Big Ten.

Sometimes the SEC.

You a Mayo guy.

In SI I know it can be very divisive, divisive on social media. Yeah, in in spots. I've been places around the country where they're very aggressive with their Mayo.

I'm not an.

Aggressive Mayo type, but mixed in with a good like burger sauce or sure, something like that.

Yeah, potato salad. Are you good with that?

Sure?

Yeah? Okay.

Need the right proportion though, of Mayo. If you're over the top with it, I'm I'm not interested, But I think in my old age here, I've come around on it.

I do like Mayo a good deal. Ty, I do like Mayo a good deal. Burger sauce, non burger sauce, potato salad, turkey sandwich. Hit me with some Mao for sure, I'm in.

So here is the deal.

You can always email us at solid verbal at gmail dot com let us know what you think about what we have to say and where we should go next. We're always interested in your feedback. But one of the things that we've gotten time and again during the off season is folks want to talk more with coaches and hear more from the guys who are calling the plays and drawing up the schemes.

And we've got one of those today.

Don't we not just we've got a pretty major one too. And Joe Morehead, who not just from what he's accomplished. Be it at way back when at u Con, yes on the Jordan Toddman twenty ten offense, that's the Joe Morehead offense. Tie at Fordham took over a team that went one to ten and led them to Patriot League glory. And then we all remember what he did at Penn State with Trace McSorley and Saquon Barkley and your guy what, Mike Gaziki, Yeah, that's your secret guy, Kans Gasicki, Hans Gacicki.

I think that's right. I think that's right.

I'm excited about this interview again, going out to Instagram, going out to Twitter, going out to Facebook, or read it anywhere you can find the solid verbal and let us know your thoughts at to the fact. But without further ado, Dan, shall we dive.

In and with that I welcome in brand new Oregon offensive coordinator formerly of Mississippi State, Penn State, and obviously, most importantly the fordum Rams, Joe moorehead. I guess first, how'd the cross country move go? During a pandemic?

We bought an RV and packed everyone in including the dog, and made the forty four hour drive just under a week. But it was There are some National Lampoon vacation moments, but overall it was a positive experience.

This is with wife and with kids all in the same car.

Like two kids and a dog in an RV.

Yesser.

So other than everything, how is your job right now? How is your profession? I imagine night and day from what you're used to at least this time of year.

I mean, it's been surreal in a lot of ways. You know, things were going kind of as it was, standards kind of operating procedure off until our four spring ball practice, and that's when everything kind of hit. Things started getting shut down, and I had already a plan to go back to Mississippi for spring break because the

So things don't work out in Starkville, which I'm sure leaves you disappointed, to say the least. What kind of timeline do you have to sort of process things there, reflect on everything, and then figure out what's next from both I guess a coaching and family perspective.

Yeah, I mean you can make the argument. I mean, ultimately it didn't work out because I was let go, but I'm certainly proud of the things we did there. You know, average seventh a year, which was just as many as my predecessor. My two year record was one game better in the regular season than the two years before I arrived. Two bowls, three top twenty five recruiting classes, two wins over the top twenty five teams. So I keep my head held high and proud of what we did with

Why was that?

I think it was a combination of things. Location a coach for Crystal Ball, and the culture and the mindset and the mentality he's brought out here, you know, the town, on the roster and you know, I've been a part of four conference championships at the last five schools I've been at, and I really think that Organ was once again with the talent, with the culture, the conference, you are kind of on the precipice there of you know, of you know, cracking into that that that final four,

I was going to say, now you're also in a situation, maybe for the first time, you're joining a program already on top of its conference. What's what's what's the interview process? Like, what's what's that conversation when you don't need to go in and say I'm going to overhaul things by doing X, Y and Z, I'm going to dramatically fix an offense, but rather, here's how I can give it a new sort of punch. What's that conversation?

Like, Yeah, it's kind of funny. I haven't really not thought of that. You know, at Mississippi State, you know, hadn't had a had had one winning conference record in I think twenty one years, I believe, and hadn't won the conference since nineteen forty one. So that was certainly something we were looking to try to try to build,

Something I think is fascinating hearing some head coaches talk about bringing a coordinator in to run the team system, not necessarily the coordinator system. And so, now that you're on the job, do you get the sense that Oregon fans will see a familiar offense with your spin on it, or like a capital J Joe morehead offense, however that's defined.

Yeah, and I think that the change won't be as visible to the casual fan as it was at Penn State, where it was more of a conversion between a pro style and a spread. I think a lot of the personnel groups, I think it'll it'll look most similar in the run game to Oregon from twenty nineteen. I think the biggest difference you'll see is in the past game

Well, I was going to say, I'm sure there's a common thought among Oregon fans or college football fans paying attention. You know, if Joe moorehead can do what he did it for sa Quon Barkley or Kylon Hill or Chase Edmonds going back to Foridam, Mike Sick, you know whoever. I'm sure that's something you've spoken to in job interviews.

Yeah, I think it's a combination of both. Ultimately, it's it's players not plays. It's it's not what the coaches know, it's what the players can execute. So you know, CJ. Verdell, you know, obviously a great offensive line, you know, breaking in a new quarterback, some great tight ends, a good receiving corpse, so we you know, I went watched every snap of Wargan season last year offensively, and then you know, we met for a long time as the staff heading

That we have.

You know, Mississippi State we had to be more run heavy because that's where we were strong. But I think we have an opportunity here to be bounced, just like everywhere else. So I mean maybe outside of Yukon, we were probably a little run heavy at.

Yukon, and as well you should. I mean, Jordan Toddman had a fantastic season.

To Anthony Sherman, I mean, I mean that offensive line. I think you know, nine Dixon and Todblin were the only two thousand yard rushers that were on a non option based team, and then Jordan was one of the top rushers in the country in that ten season. But yeah, they're phenomenal backs. And I think Sharm's still in the league, I'm not mistaken.

How do you start to evaluate new players, new personnel. Obviously with Mario Christobaul's background and you have the returning Outland Trophy winner and Panae sewell, are you looking at things from the inside out and saying, this is what we have on the line, this is how it will dictate what we do as we look at the passing game, as we look at the running game. You know, do you have a luxury that you are dealing in such a I guess an offensive line forward grouping at this point.

Yeah, I think games are one up front, regardless of the of the league. You know, mose to four or five starters, you know, that's something where we feel comfortable with the people who are replacing them. It's just right now excoose me a lack of repetitions. But if you're going to start somewhere with an anker the outlet trophy, there's certainly a good spot. So, you know, we feel

You mentioned changing what the passing game will look like. That'll be the thing that looks most different. What did you see. I mean, obviously Justin Herbert gets taken in the top ten and then they finish really successfully this season. What did you see from the passing game last year? And where did you see I suppose opportunity for evolution.

Yeah. One of the things is we went back and kind of watched the game tapes and watched the cutups. Is I think that Oregon was really proficient in the screen game last year, and not just bubble screens, but double screens, wide receiver screens. You know, a bunch of really neat stuff there. And then some things in the play action game that I thought were We're you know,

People said, essentially, what you are is a teacher, and obviously as a teacher, you're only going to be as successful as your students are at learning and applying. So you're obviously tasked with both coaching and finding players to coach. How do you how do you find and develop good learners?

Yeah? I think part of that comes into in the recruit process, you know, as you're going through and evaluating guys, and it's not just you know, the height, the weight, speed, the football ability, but you know, how much do they love football? What's your IQ relative to the game and their commitment to the preparation aspect of it. But uh, you know, to me, you've got to teach to the understanding of the guy in the room who understands it

How do you get a sense for I suppose what players already know when you're coming into a new program, and obviously you know they spoke a different language last year. They certainly every every coach teaches differently, so they learned in a different way. Perhaps, how do you get a sense for what they already know? And is that important or do you like, you know, starting from square one with everybody, so everybody's on the same page.

Yeah, a lot of it's trans and you'll start with bigger group meetings and kind of talk about general philosophy and you know, you know, broad strokes ideas, and then break it down into your positions and hey, you know we're running this play and this is who we're reading or this is what we call this coverage? What did you call it? And just kind of ask more open ended questions for them to explain, you know, rather than

Do you ask those same questions in the recruiting process to get a sense for players? Obviously you're both trying to convince them to come play for you, but at the same time you're trying to convince yourself that they would make sense as as a person in your program. Are you asking them questions to get a sense of how they would respond to what you would ask of them.

I think you tried to as much as you can, but I do think it's in my opinion, most critical critical at the quarterback position. With what you're asking kids to do at this level, and not just in the past game, but then the run game, there has to be a certain level of commitment to the preparation aspect of it is. I tell them it's not a position, it's a lifestyle, and you can be good and be a part time quarterback, but the ones who generally exceed

Where do you think you've gotten stronger, Where do you think you've gotten better? As somebody looking for quarterbacks and you know, looking what looking for what traits matter to you? Where what does your evolution look like as a as a quarterback and recruiting evaluator.

I think it's compiling all the information and then you know, getting the kid on campus, and there's something to having a kid in the room looking out of my eye and just kind of getting the feel of that. You know, I said, when a quarterback walks in the room, you shouldn't have to ask this a quarterback now that that's not the deal breaker. But you know, you talk about the height to weight, the speed, and then there's a series of things in our evaluation process arm strength, touch, accuracy,

Will you, when you're recruiting, will you show cut ups to a receiver, a running back, a quarterback and say this is how we you know, this is how we're going to use you in at the exposition and we're going to hammer you hammered defense is using this route? Will you? Will you sort of give that visual element? Does that seem to help?

Yeah, absolutely, particularly when you're coming from a place where you know you weren't there the year before. And uh, you know, guys want to know about and rightfully so utilization in the scheme and you know there's no better way. And we have you know, film from all the different places I've been and backing it up by statistics and numbers, and you know, when they can kind of it's easy to tell them, uh, and talk about what kids, what you recall from what you hear, you know, what you

Uh.

I think that's that's it provides. You talk about decision making criteria, It provides the kid, you know, the information he needs each relatively scheme.

One of the things you're credited with, and I think rightfully so, is popularizing and taking the RPO game and moving it forward, be it at Fordham, be it at Penn State, wherever, and when you look at and there's a school of thought now that running backs are as important as ever, but not necessarily because the running game is as important as it's ever been, but more the versatility of a running back, the ability to create mismatches out of a running back, is more important than ever.

Yeah, I think if a guy has that kind of positional flexibility, to have a catch the ball out of the back of the lineup in the slot. That makes you suffer to defend. But historically we've been you know, a team that wants to get the ball to the back, you know, in a traditional way. But also in year two, you know, Penn State, where people were crowd in the box, we had to find ways to get saquant on a perimeter like you remember from the Michigan game or some

Something that's and you mentioned that the sort of the positionless aspect, and it used to be that a tweeter type player was seen as a negative or a weakness, and now it's almost an opportunity to find a position, to find a challenger, to find multiple positions to to sort of feature that player. Almost like in basketball, how you have you know, teams going small. Is that something that can be developed or are taught, or do you just need to get lucky with a player built a very specific way.

Yeah.

I think the two positions you've probably seen that show up the most is quarterback, where you have you have the kind of the dual threat guys I mean who are able to beat it with their arms and their legs. I think where you're seeing it the most. I think we've done a pretty good job is at tight end, you know what I mean, where their traditional you know, got a three point stance, you know, next to the tackle. You know, blocking two back power fifty times a game.

Would you say that's a priority, and what you're looking to do at Oregon is really maximize what the tight end can do in the offense.

I do, and you know, we've got a bunch of good ones, and unfortunately we've only had four practices to see, but I think we we did the study. I think over the last ten years, the tight ends to this offense of average forty five catches a year. So it's always been a very integral part of our system. And not just like I said, because they have to block,

You've now had a number of assistants and gas and I know a lot of people now know about, you know, the coaching relationship and the friendship you have with Joe Brady who was so successful for LSU last year. They go on to become coordinators and head coaches and really succeed. And you've worked with a lot of successful people on

Yeah, I think everybody saw enough of LSC the Last life. But I was actually I was actually texting with with Joe, with Joe Brady today a little bit earlier. But yeah, I mean, you look at the guys in that ped State room, and you know, coach Huf at Alabama, Ricky's now the head coach at Odu, Josh at at Michigan, Joe Brady, I mean, and so on down the line. Those are the great things about the profession. That's not just the wins and the losses and all those things,

What's your idea collection process? Like, obviously it's it's players overplay something you mentioned earlier, But are you constantly scouring? Do you have gas and you know quality can troll guys and you know analysts. Are they constantly scouring? Are you telling people to look for you know, what is this team had a ton of success in the passing game? Would you give me some cutups?

Are you?

Is that like a year long process? Is that an off season process? What is what does that creative collection look like for you?

Yeah, that kind of went to the wayside a little bit this year, just because I'm sure however called. But that's that's usually when during the month of the spring evaluation period, kind of that last two weeks April and May is when you kind of forge the gas in the analysts, and we usually talk about it and say, all right, these are the teams that we want to study. And while we're out on the road recruiting, those guys

That are.

Kind of you know, fit what you do. I mean, there's a bunch of tremendous ideas out there, but a lot of them are just great. You just got to make you want to make sure not only you studying the right people, but they're ones that if you're going to incorporate the idea, that that it's relatively seen, will send to your scheme.

So I assume you've had some time on your hands. Who have you watched? Who have you been impressed by? If if you've had the opportunity to watch any cutups, we haven't.

We've I've been doing more opponent study and watching ourselves and then off season study just because there's not going to be time to integrate it, you know, And that's the one thing, you know, talk to some people there. You've really got to be judicious in your approach. Now with no springball, you get some walk throughs, then you get Paul Camp. You know, you're really I don't think personally you're going to be able to expand the idea base,

So not for Oregon, but for I assume pretty much every school, especially ones with perhaps new coordinators. Do you anticipate, you know, if everything goes off as I think everybody hopes this fall, do you anticipate a lot of sort of simplified playbooks across the sport man?

Conventional wisdom would probably dictate that, I don't, you know, don't want to kind of make a journalization, but sure, you know, to me, it'll come down to culture, It'll come down to scheme, but most importantly the execution of the scheme, and in a lot of ways some simplicity always helps with that.

So now, what's what's next? As far as you can tell with installation and practice, you tell me, I mean what what do you know?

What?

What is what?

You know?

As much as you know what right now? Like what are you doing next week? What are you doing tomorrow?

What?

What is on the schedule?

I mean, we we've we've uh, you know, we've had kids going back to campus kind in waves, just like everybody else. But we're not going to be able based on the NCAA calendar start because aditionally meeting with them again until a little bit further down the road. So you know, right now we're recruiting our tails off, we're kind of watching the things that we did in springball, kind of anticipating that time we're going to be able

Can you be sending out you know, iPad playbooks. Can you be sending out notes like what is the process like to keep players sort of engaged intellectually with what they can expect cumfall camp.

You know, we kind of cut the time. You know, you obviously know there's discretionary weeks and things like that whe're not you're not able to get with them, and we certainly had heered all of that. But during the time, I think all the Zoom meetings that we've done the past or whatever timeframe was when we were allowed to, you know, really allowed us to slow down and kind of be very detail oriented in our teaching and approach.

And something that hasn't slowed down because it never will slow down, is recruiting. So you are, you're new to Eugene, you're new to a program, you're asked and you know, I'm sure it's difficult enough to sort of hit the ground running with something that's at least at first unfamiliar, but you're convincing kids to come play for you, come play in a system that they haven't really fully seen with the personnel that you now have. How has recruiting

It's been fantastic. And I remember you know, a few years ago the big question was can the guy from Pennsylvania come to Mississippi and recruit yep, and we responded with three top twenty five classes and three out of

All right, final question, what have been your impressions in this short time of Eugene, Oregon your new hometown. You know, have you found meals you like? Have you found parks to walk a dog?

You know?

Have you have you found at least some sort of routine in a very strange time with a brand new job.

You're begging for routine because just like Groundhog Day, No, I mean it's incredibly temperate. I mean you're situated in Eugene that the ocean's forty five minutes to the west. You know, there's mountains and trails and kind of outdoorsy stuff, which coming from Pittsburgh wasn't really kind of my deal. But my family likes that, so as long as they're

Joe Morehead, thank you very much for your time and good luck.

Appreciate Dan. Thank you very much.

All right, that was my conversation with Joe Morehead. Thank you again, of course to Joe, and thank you to all of you for listening to the show. Always just a thrill to nerd out about all things x's and o's and putting together a team and recruiting and especially the different world that we now live in and how coaches are trying to navigate everything as they prepare hopefully