Joe Moorhead Cleared to Travel for UCLA Game
Oregon Offensive Coordinator Joe Moorhead spoke to the media in his first press conference after undergoing what he said was an ‘emergency major surgery.' Moorhead said he didn’t want to go into any further detail beyond that, but he will be able to travel to the UCLA game after meeting with his doctor.
"The doctor okay'd me this morning to make the trip."
During his time away from the team, Moorhead spent much of his time working remotely ahead of last week's game.
“Last week, everything I did was remote from home.” he told reporters. “Barely over two weeks out, and then was able to come in and call the game from the booth on Saturday. Just had a follow-up appointment this morning, I’ll start to be able to do some things from the office starting this afternoon. But I just got to be smart, judicious with the approach because it's still technically in full recovery territory from the surgery.”
Moorhead returned for Friday’s game against Cal in the booth, calling the plays in a bit of a different fashion since he's normally on the field giving the plays and signals. That's very rare for him and there were some changes from normal in-game protocol.
“I think that was my first time calling a game from the booth since the 2010 Fiesta Bowl. Moorhead said. “So, a little bit different, you miss face-to-face interaction with the players on the sideline and some of the motivational part, but you do get a little bit better of a view. So we'll continue to take it day-by-day. It will feel good to get back in the office around the guys in the coaches in some capacity this week.”
When asked about what he thought of the offensive performance in the first half of the season, he seemed to like where they are, citing where rank among Pac-12 teams in some key categories.
“Through six games we’re 5-1.” Moorhead said. “I think we're second in the conference in scoring by like two-tenths of a point. I think we're top three or four in total yards. So the things that we need to do to help the team be successful I think we're doing.
"We came into the season saying we wanted to do two things specifically, create explosive plays and limit turnovers. I think we've succeeded more in the latter than the former. But our explosive play ratio has improved.”
Moorhead did admit that there are definitely still improvements to be made in this offense, but he feels that they're trending in the right direction to be able to meet some goals they set at the beginning of the season.
“We're never going to reach the standard that we set for this offense. We want to see a touchdown on every drive and that's just not reasonable.” Moorhead said. “So I'd say that we are trending in the right direction. I'd say that we are playing well, but I think there's a ton of room for improvement for us across the board as an offensive unit.”
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