Joe Moorhead Addresses Being Linked to Akron Head Coach Job

With Akron coaching rumors looming, Moorhead is still focused on the Pac-12 title

Oregon has had their fair share of coaching rumors this year both involving Mario Cristobal, and now Offensive Coordinator Joe Moorhead. According to Yahoo! Sports’ Pete Thamel, Moorhead is a leading candidate for the Akron Zips head coaching vacancy.

Moorhead spoke with the media today and was asked about the coaching carousel and his involvement in it, whether he’s been in contact with Akron or any other team. Moorhead did not deny the report in his answer.

“Certainly, it’s the time of year where the carousel is spinning very quickly in some instances,” Moorhead said. “I’ve heard or seen my name attached to multiple openings this cycle and, quite frankly, the past two years. But all I can say is that all of my focus and attention is on doing things that are necessary to help our offense prepare to play well on Saturday.”

For any coach, Moorhead included, this is always a very hard decision for him and his family. Moorhead spoke about what goes into a decision like this when opportunities and how he prioritizes what's important. 

For him, his three criteria are personal, professional and monetary.

“Professionally, you have a chance to go somewhere where you can either sustain success or rebuild.” Moorhead said. “And like I said, the monetary part, everybody likes money. But I’ve gotten to a point where--  I grew up, my dad was a steelworker, had three jobs, and we were the lowest end of middle class you can be. I still don’t even know my ATM code, so I have to ask my wife for money. So the money part of it, yeah we have some of it, but I don’t have any in my wallet and have to ask her for an allowance. That part’s a little further down the trough right now.”

Moorhead might be cracking jokes about his involvement in becoming a head coach elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t fully invested in the upcoming Pac-12 Championship game this Friday. All of the focus for him is on game planning against a team that dominated his offense two weeks ago. Moorhead confirmed this is not a distraction for the players and no one has asked him about it.

“We’re preparing to get ready to play the game,” he said. “Then we’ll deal with anything that happens after that.”

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