AKRON, Ohio — Editor's note: the video in the player above is from a previous story.
Nearly one month after firing Tom Arth, it looks like the University of Akron has landed on a new head football coach. And he happens to be a familiar face to the Zips program.
According to The Athletic's Bruce Feldman, Akron is set to hire Oregon offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead as its new head coach following the Ducks' appearance in the Pac-12 Championship Game vs. Utah on Friday. The 48-year-old Pittsburgh native previously spent time in the Rubber City as an assistant with the Zips from 2004-2008, the last three seasons of which he served as Akron's offensive coordinator.
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Following his time with the Zips, Moorhead served as an assistant coach at Connecticut (2009-2011) before taking over as the head coach at Fordham, where he amassed a 38-13 record from 2012-2015. In 2016, he joined James Franklin's staff at Penn State as the Nittany Lions offensive coordinator before being hired as the head coach at Mississippi State in 2018.
Moorhead's time in Starkville, however, would be short-lived, as he was fired after totaling a 14-12 record in two seasons with Bulldogs. After his firing, he joined Mario Cristobal's Oregon staff as its offensive coordinator, where he's helped lead the Ducks to a combined 14-5 record in the past two seasons.
Last month, Akron fired Arth following its 2-7 start to the 2021 season. Over the course of his two-plus seasons as the Zips head coach, the Saint Ignatius and John Carroll alum totaled a 3-24 record, including a 2-17 mark in Mid-American Conference play.