Oregon’s new offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead may look like a high school science teacher, but as long as he is proficient in the science of scoring touchdowns, the Ducks won’t care.
Moorhead came to Eugene from Mississippi State with the hopes of taking the offense to a whole new level. Oregon scored plenty last season, but the feeling was that the Ducks were holding back somewhat despite having a first-round quarterback running things.
It would have been difficult enough to come in with a new offensive playbook and to learn the personnel at Oregon to see how they all fit in with Moorhead’s schemes. But now with everything turned every which way and upside down thanks to the pandemic with opt outs and Zoom calls, Moorhead’s job became even more difficult.
“We were making great progress and great headway in Spring ball,” Moorhead said. “We were getting to install the system and getting to know the guys and then obviously it was cut short. Like anything, as a teacher, generally speaking, they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
According to Moorhead, one of the advantages of his system is that it’s adaptive and flexible.
“A lot of it is not what we know, but what the players can execute. We’ve operated the system to a quarterback who can run and one who can throw where running is not his strength,” he said.
“The best part of it is its adaptability and its sophisticated simplicity. I’m excited because I think we’re going to be able to tailor this thing to be pretty balanced.”
It’s still early to determine what the Oregon offense will look like, having to figure out a brand new offensive line, a new quarterback and a new scheme. But the pieces of the puzzle are definitely there.
Now it’s up to Moorhead and head coach Mario Cristobal to put the pieces of the puzzle together to form a cohesive picture.
“You get to see them run around while we were doing conditioning, so there’s a bit of an evaluation of athletic ability, but not much in terms of walkthroughs aside from assignment correctness,” Moorhead said.
“With what we saw in Spring and building off of that and what we’ll be doing going through camp, I think there a bunch of guys who are capable who have made plays at this level and some younger guys behind them who can do the same.”
Joe Moorhead Press Conference 10-10-20