Penn State coach James Franklin was concerned with the development of Sean Clifford (14) and his quarterbacks in 2020, which factored into his decision to switch offensive coordinators this month.
                                 Barry Reeger | AP file photo

Penn State coach James Franklin was concerned with the development of Sean Clifford (14) and his quarterbacks in 2020, which factored into his decision to switch offensive coordinators this month.

Barry Reeger | AP file photo

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The merger, James Franklin decided, was not working well enough.

Last year, the Penn State coach had hoped to meld Kirk Ciarrocca’s success as an offensive coordinator with the system that had launched the Nittany Lions back among the national contenders.

Perhaps, had the coronavirus pandemic not hindered Ciarrocca’s integration with the team, it would have worked. But after a 4-5 finish in 2020, Franklin wasn’t about to stay the course to find out.

That’s why on Monday Franklin found himself explaining the abrupt shift in offensive coordinators from Ciarrocca to Mike Yurcich earlier this month.

“At the end of the day, it was a very tough decision, obviously,” Franklin said in his first news conference of 2021. “But philosophically, I felt like it was the right thing for us to do to get where we want to go and play a style on offense that I think is gonna be important.”

Franklin’s availability was billed as a wrap-up of the 2020 season. But the focus was on returning to what was working from 2016-19 in time for next fall.

“It’s going to be back to who we were the previous three or four years,” Franklin said of the offense, which helped Penn State go 42-11 with a Big Ten title during that stretch. “It’s going to be spread. It’s going to be tempo. It’s going to be an emphasis on explosive plays. We’re still working through all those types of things.

“Me and Mike have been talking for a long time. And we’re all on the same page, in what we want to do and how we want to do it.”

Yurcich, who got his coaching career off the ground in the PSAC as Franklin did, arrives after helping lead some of the country’s most productive offenses in different roles at Oklahoma State, Ohio State and, last year, at Texas.

Just as important to Franklin as the raw numbers — the Longhorns averaged 42.7 points per game in 2020 — is the style behind them.

“It’s points, it’s explosive plays, it’s ball security, it’s yards per play, it’s being multiple when it comes to tempos, it’s multiple when it comes to personnel groups,” Franklin said. “We want to be able to put people in conflict and make people uncomfortable and make people defend the field.

“And there’s a lot of different ways to be balanced. Balance is the ability to run or pass in multiple situations. It’s the ability to run a traditional style running game with your running back. It’s to do that with the quarterback as well.”

Franklin made it clear that he has long followed Yurcich’s career, back when he had a record-setting offense at Division II Shippensburg, which propelled him into a major coordinator job at Oklahoma State.

Had Yurcich not suddenly become available after Texas reversed course to fire head coach Tom Herman, it’s likely Ciarrocca would have been back for a second season at Penn State.

But that doesn’t mean Franklin would have been thrilled with the situation.

Most concerning for the Lions was the drop-off in play at quarterback, where turnovers by starter Sean Clifford were a major reason the team started last season in an 0-5 hole.

Beyond the play of Clifford and backup Will Levis, who split reps down the stretch, Franklin was worried that more struggles at the position could hurt Penn State’s chances at recruiting the type of elite quarterback that the program needs to have a serious shot at the College Football Playoff.

“I wouldn’t say that we took a step in the right direction,” Franklin said of the quarterbacks play under Ciarrocca. “I wouldn’t say that we had built on the year before, and that’s why there was change.

“I think that’s another big part of this (coaching switch). It’s getting back to that position playing at a high level and even taking the next step of playing really, really high-level football. We all know that position is critical to your overall team’s success.”

Franklin didn’t rule out the possibility of adding another quarterback this offseason via the transfer portal.

“We’re going to be as aggressive as we have to be at every position to help our football program,” Franklin said. “If there’s something that makes sense and clearly makes us better, then we’re going to look at it.”

Regardless, the goal moving forward is to try and recapture the explosiveness the Lions were known for in the recent past.

“A few years ago, we were running the spread, we were mixing in tempo, we were doing a bunch of those things and had a lot of success,” Franklin said. “And then obviously with the decision that we made in the last hiring cycle, that was a little bit different than than (Ciarrocca’s) background. So that’s where we felt like the blend had to happen, so that we could balance those two things and making sure that we were still running a similar offense that we had run in the past.

“So this hopefully is going to get us a little bit closer back to that to who we want to be and what our philosophy is on offense, it aligns more with with where we’re at.”