DanielHouse
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Gophers’ offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca is being courted for an offensive assistant position at West Virginia, according to Tom Loy of 24/7 Sports. Ciarrocca followed head coach P.J. Fleck from Western Michigan and served as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for two seasons at Minnesota. Ciarrocca and new West Virginia head coach Neal Brown worked together at Delaware during the 2005 season. It appears this connection may have been the driving force behind the duo teaming up.
If Ciarrocca does leave (not 100% done yet), the Gophers will need to tweak the staff in order to fill this opening. With the current staff arrangement, tight end Clay Patterson has the most diverse experience coordinating offenses. Patterson helped orchestrate several explosive offenses in the junior college ranks. He coordinated the offense at Texas A&M University-Kingsville from 2007-13 and his offenses broke 28 individual and 17 team passing records.
Patterson really made his mark at Trinity Valley Community College. He set NJCAA records for total offense in a season (7,778 yards), yards per game (656.1 YPG) and plays in a season (938). In 23 of his 35 games as an offensive coordinator, he scored more than 50 points. In addition, he had thirteen 60-point games and eight 70-point games. He helped develop quarterback Jerod Evans, who eventually transferred to Virginia Tech and had short stints in the NFL. Patterson served as a quarterbacks coach during his three seasons at Trinity Valley and was the head coach at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College for two years. He added many modern wrinkles and route concepts to a flashy RPO system. Patterson coached tight ends at Minnesota last year and was extremely valuable on the recruiting trail. He has not coordinated at the Power-Five level, but has experience in the play-calling role.
At Northeast Oklahoma A&M, Patterson ran many of the same concepts at Minnesota, including a heavy dose of run-pass option (RPO) looks and inside zone blocking schemes. He is an innovative offensive mind and has a diverse background at a variety of different position groups. I plan on diving into his offenses more, but when he was hired, I started to read about his “dump” RPO concepts and the tags he developed for running plays. This was a piece I enjoyed back when the Gophers hired Patterson last year. He wrote this when he was running the offense at Trinity Valley.
Patterson has a really diverse, modern and innovative offense mind. I would expect he will be considered a top candidate for this job. He has slowly elevated through the ranks and would provide an approach that closely mirrors many of the concepts Minnesota ran under Ciarrocca. Not only that, but much of the nomenclature could remain similar with a few small tweaks.
Losing a coach that developed so many young players would be a big loss, but the Gophers certainly have a viable in-house candidate they can interview.
If Ciarrocca does leave (not 100% done yet), the Gophers will need to tweak the staff in order to fill this opening. With the current staff arrangement, tight end Clay Patterson has the most diverse experience coordinating offenses. Patterson helped orchestrate several explosive offenses in the junior college ranks. He coordinated the offense at Texas A&M University-Kingsville from 2007-13 and his offenses broke 28 individual and 17 team passing records.
Patterson really made his mark at Trinity Valley Community College. He set NJCAA records for total offense in a season (7,778 yards), yards per game (656.1 YPG) and plays in a season (938). In 23 of his 35 games as an offensive coordinator, he scored more than 50 points. In addition, he had thirteen 60-point games and eight 70-point games. He helped develop quarterback Jerod Evans, who eventually transferred to Virginia Tech and had short stints in the NFL. Patterson served as a quarterbacks coach during his three seasons at Trinity Valley and was the head coach at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College for two years. He added many modern wrinkles and route concepts to a flashy RPO system. Patterson coached tight ends at Minnesota last year and was extremely valuable on the recruiting trail. He has not coordinated at the Power-Five level, but has experience in the play-calling role.
At Northeast Oklahoma A&M, Patterson ran many of the same concepts at Minnesota, including a heavy dose of run-pass option (RPO) looks and inside zone blocking schemes. He is an innovative offensive mind and has a diverse background at a variety of different position groups. I plan on diving into his offenses more, but when he was hired, I started to read about his “dump” RPO concepts and the tags he developed for running plays. This was a piece I enjoyed back when the Gophers hired Patterson last year. He wrote this when he was running the offense at Trinity Valley.
Patterson has a really diverse, modern and innovative offense mind. I would expect he will be considered a top candidate for this job. He has slowly elevated through the ranks and would provide an approach that closely mirrors many of the concepts Minnesota ran under Ciarrocca. Not only that, but much of the nomenclature could remain similar with a few small tweaks.
Losing a coach that developed so many young players would be a big loss, but the Gophers certainly have a viable in-house candidate they can interview.
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