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Joe Moorhead reveals son locked himself in a room following Justin Fields’ decommitment from Penn State
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Joe Moorhead produced some impressive moments while leading Penn State’s offense for James Franklin. However, the “one that got away” will always be Justin Fields.
As a 5-star prospect and No. 2 player in the nation for the 2018 recruiting class, Fields originally committed to the Nittany Lions in December of 2016 when Moorhead was the OC and QBs coach. Unfortunately, Fields playing in Happy Valley was not meant to be.
The highly-touted quarterback would eventually reopen his recruitment in the summer of 2017 before eventually beginning his career at Georgia. In a recent conversation on the Saturday Down South Podcast with Connor O’Gara, Moorhead explained how that “breakup call” went with Fields.
“I can tell you exactly what happened. It was during the summer, we were at a travel baseball game for my youngest son,” said Moorhead. “The game ended and we went to a restaurant at Penn State to grab lunch, and the call came. When the conversation begins with ‘Coach, do you have a second to talk?’ it’s usually not headed down the right path.”
Moorhead went on to explain the news was so devastating that his son locked himself in his room crying for over an hour.
“I walked out and Justin kinda explained his reasoning and what he was going to do. Certainly didn’t like it or understand it, but, you know, that’s our job… My youngest one is a freshman in high school now, but gave him the news. When we got home, he locked himself in his room and was crying,” Moorhead explained. “I had to go and console him because he was crying for like an hour and a half that we lost Justin. So yes, I distinctly remember how that all went down.”
At the end of the day, Fields’ time at Penn State was not meant to be with the elite prospect spending a year at Georgia before transitioning to Ohio State. Moorhead would also leave the program after the 2017 season for the head coaching job at Mississippi State.
Would Moorhead have stayed with the program for the opportunity to coach Fields in college? That is definitely an interesting thought to ponder.
You can check out the full episode of the SDS Podcast here. Conversation with Moorhead regarding Fields begins around the 48-minute mark.
Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.