James Franklin was impressed with fellow Pennsylvania native Kirk Ciarrocca — even before the latter helped end the Nittany Lions’ undefeated season.
Now Ciarrocca will be running the offense for Franklin as Penn State’s new offensive coordinator.
The school officially announced the hiring of Ciarrocca on Thursday morning, as the former Minnesota offensive coordinator will take the same title at Penn State, where he will also coach quarterbacks.
“We couldn’t be more excited to bring in someone of Kirk’s caliber to our Penn State football family,” Franklin said through the school. “He is a veteran coordinator who also has deep Pennsylvania roots and ties. His most recent successes as an offensive coordinator caught our eye.
“What impressed me most about Kirk in the hiring process was his humility and his willingness to make this an easy transition for our players.”
Ciarrocca, 54, replaces Ricky Rahne, who left earlier this month to become the head coach at Old Dominion. For Franklin, it will be his fourth offensive coordinator heading into his seventh season leading Penn State. Tight ends coach Tyler Bowen will still serve as interim coordinator for the Lions’ Cotton Bowl matchup against Memphis on Saturday.
“I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity to work at a program as rich in tradition as Penn State University,” Ciarrocca said through the school. “It is an honor and a privilege to join coach Franklin’s staff and to work alongside such a successful head football coach.
“Having grown up a Penn State fan, I am humbled by the opportunity to serve as your offensive coordinator. My family and I are overjoyed to be coming home to Happy Valley.”
Franklin had long been keeping tabs on Ciarrocca before this year, when he oversaw one of the nation’s most efficient offenses at Minnesota.
“Offensively, Kirk Ciarrocca, who is a native from Lewisberry, went to Red Land High School, I’ve known him for a long time,” Franklin said before the teams met in November. “Has done a really good job.”
And that was before Minnesota’s 31-26 victory that ultimately kept Penn State out of the Rose Bowl this season. In a matchup of unbeatens, Ciarrocca’s offense outdueled Rahne’s, as Minnesota hit several big plays in the passing game while the Lions struggled in the red zone and fell just short of a comeback at the end.
Minnesota finished the regular season 10-2 and had the country’s No. 22 scoring offense this season. Advanced metrics especially liked Ciarrocca’s approach, as the Gophers offense is eighth nationally in the SP+ rankings — “a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency.” Penn State’s offense is 18th.
Ciarrocca’s success this season made him a semifinalist for the Broyles award as the top assistant coach in college football.
Just as Rahne had been with Franklin for several years with two different schools, Ciarrocca comes to Penn State after seven years with P.J. Fleck at Minnesota and Western Michigan, where they helped lift both programs to impressive seasons.
After graduating from Red Land, Ciarrocca went to Temple, where he also got his coaching career started as a graduate assistant. And he remained an admirer of Penn State since his childhood.
“I mean, Penn State when I was growing up, I’m pretty sure I had Nittany Lion pajamas,” Ciarrocca told reporters in Minnesota in November. “I got to go to like one or two games growing up and I loved it. Just about everybody where I grew up is a Penn State fan.”
Ciarrocca has primarily coached quarterbacks and wide receivers over his career, which took him from the Division III ranks to Princeton and Penn coaching wideouts before his breakout as Delaware’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2002-07, helping develop Joe Flacco and win a Division I-AA national title.
He spent three years on Greg Schiano’s staff at Rutgers before finding his stride alongside Fleck when hired at Western Michigan in 2013.
Now Ciarrocca is tasked with integrating with the system originally installed by Joe Moorhead in 2016, which isn’t expected to change dramatically.
“We don’t really want someone to come in and start all over again,” Franklin said last week. “We’re looking for somebody that has the experience as well as the humility to come in and blend. To say, ‘OK, what are the things that I have conviction about for me to run my offense that I can’t really change. I need these things to be comfortable to call the offense and what things can we keep the same from a verbiage standpoint so that the players aren’t having to learn a completely new system.’
“So what things can change and what things can stay the same? So that’s what we’re looking for, someone that can come in and do that.”