Minnesota Targeting Kirk Ciarrocca as New (Old) Offensive Coordinator

PJ Fleck fired Minnesota Gophers offensive coordinator, Mike Sanford, earlier this week. That was shortly after Tanner Morgan announced his return for 2022. At that time, we wrote about former OC Kirk Ciarrocca as being a possible candidate, just given his current employment status as an “offensive analyst” at West Virginia.

But on Thursday night, Yahoo Sports’s Pete Thamel, turned random conjectures into reality. Thamel is reporting that Minnesota is targeting Ciarrocca as their next offensive coordinator. Ryan Burns (Gopher Illustrated) has confirmed that Ciarrocca is the hire.

That’s right, PJ is getting the old (2019) band back together.

Sources: Minnesota has targeted Kirk Ciarrocca as the school’s new offensive coordinator. He worked as P.J. Fleck’s OC for seven combined seasons at Western Michigan and Minnesota. He was the OC for Minnesota’s 11-2 2019 season and worked last year as a West Virginia analyst.

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) December 3, 2021

Until he left for Penn State after the 2019 regular season, Kirk Ciarrocca was the only offensive coordinator that PJ Fleck ever employed. Under Ciarrocca, Tanner Morgan posted numbers in 2019 (3,253 YDS, 30 TD, 7 INT) that he hasn’t touched since.

Could the old OC be exactly what the Minnesota Gophers offense has been missing? Looks like we’re about to find out.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan