College Football
Gerad Parker Hired as Penn State reciever coach
Penn State football welcomes a new wide receivers coach to its staff as Gerad Parker replaces David Corley. Corley only coached one season on the staff before coach James Franklin let him go.
David Corley’s background and lone season a Penn State
David Corley was hired by James Franklin to coach the running backs. However, Josh Gattis left for Alabama a couple weeks after Corley’s hiring, Corley moved to wide receivers coach.
In 2017, Corley coached Army’s receivers and the group as a whole accounted for only 10 combined catches in 13 games. The evidence that Corley’s job wasn’t doing so well was evident.
Coming into this season, both Juwan Johnson and DeAndre Thompkins were suppose to lead a group of young and talented receivers. That ended up not turning out so well.
Penn State wide receiver stats 2018
By mid-October, Penn State receivers had committed 17 drops which was tied for worst in the power 5. To make that stat more detrimental, quarterback Trace McSorley had only thrown the ball 137 times.
Juwan Johnson, who was projected to be to be a first round draft pick, did not have no more than two catches in a game after September. Johnson also finished the season with only one touchdown catch. Likewise, Brandon Polk and DeAndre Thompkins declined and Polk wasn’t the deep threat he once was.
During Corley’s time, the best pass-catcher was tight tend Pat Freiermuth. McSorley’s completion rate also dropped from 66.5 percent to 53.2 percent.
Ironically, Franklin interviewed Corley for the wide receivers coaching position when Franklin was the coach at Vanderbilt.
Gerad Parker background
Gerad Parker is hired as the new wide receivers coach replacing David Corley. Parker was previously an assistant at Duke before being dubbed wide receivers coach at Penn State. Before being an assistant at Duke, Parker was the interim coach at Purdue in 2016 and has some other coaching experience at Kentucky, Marshall and UT Martin.
Gerad Parker will replace Dave Corley.
However, Parker was also hired at Cincinnati and East Carolina. On the other hand, he never coached for either program. There’s a reason he actually did not coach for those two programs. Parker was arrested on February 21, 2017 for drunk driving in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Parker is set to go on trial this month for that charge. Whether Parker remains with the team or not (legal charge results are currently pending). Hopefully, Penn State receivers have better years ahead of them and that this hire won’t come back to bite Franklin like Corley did.
Photo Credit to drocpsu via Flickr
