Penn State football: OC Taylor Mouser makes climb from selling pizza to calling plays
· Yahoo Sports
Taylor Mouser seemed destined to become a hockey player and maybe even make a career out of it.
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As a 2-year-old, Taylor was in the team photo when the Toledo Storm won the 1993 East Coast Hockey League championship because his father, Tim, was the general manager.
When he was 9, he was a stick boy who unlaced players’ skates while they were getting their cuts stitched in the locker room. He played well enough to be drafted in the North American Junior League.
“He was a solid, stay-at-home defenseman,” Tim Mouser recalled. “He was a good hockey player. He was a better hockey player than he was a football player.”
Taylor Mouser, though, loved football more than he loved hockey. He accepted a scholarship to play defensive end at Division II Adams State in Colorado. Once his career ended, he contacted more than 100 schools to see if they had coaching openings. He had no luck.
He was working the register at a Little Caesars in Chandler, Ariz., that his parents owned to occupy his time and make a few bucks. He spent much of his time talking to customers and eating pizza.
“He was not the Employee of the Month,” his father quipped.
Then he received a call that changed his life. It was from Matt Campbell, who just finished his second season as the head coach at Toledo. The Rockets had a position open as a recruiting operations intern, about as low as one could get on an organizational chart.
“He didn’t promise me anything,” Mouser recalled. “I said, ‘I’m there.’ There was no money. I knew that. I could make it work.”
The 35-year-old Mouser has been with Campbell ever since, following him from Toledo to Iowa State and now to Penn State. He slowly moved up the ranks and is now in his third season as Campbell’s offensive coordinator and 12th season overall.
“You know at Toledo, you would take a free coach anytime somebody would offer one,” Campbell recalled. “Somebody said we have a young guy who’s really interested in coaching. He came on board.
“I’ve always been a huge fan of promoting from within and especially people who come in and do a great job. You saw with every responsibility we gave him, he elevated any of those areas.”
Mouser began by doing such menial tasks as picking up cigarette butts around the outside of the hotel where Toledo would house its recruits to make the place more appealing.
“I told him to do everything nobody else wants to do and do it twice as good,” his father said. “He slept in the (football) building. He had been around minor league hockey and hung out with the equipment guys. Fill the water. Pick up the tape. Get the stick. He understood what hard work was and what it took to get there.”
“I don’t feel like I was owed anything,” Mouser said. “I knew I was going to have to outwork everybody because I didn’t have a relationship with anybody.”
His first day at Toledo didn’t go well. He was staying with an aunt about an hour from campus and drove her 12-year-old car into a ditch during a blizzard. He called it “a rocky start,” but it was not a bad omen.
He quickly showed his acumen as a personnel evaluator and later identified current NFL starters Brock Purdy and Breece Hall as prospects who wound up at Iowa State.
“Mouse made himself into a really great student of the game,” Campbell said. “I think if you talk to (current NFL wide receivers) Allen Lazard and Hakeem Butler, some of those great players we had early on at Iowa State, they’d give him a lot of credit for their development.
“Then we moved him over to the tight ends and he really did an unbelievable job with that room.”
Mouser has served as Campbell’s assistant director of scouting, offensive quality control assistant, tight ends coach and offensive coordinator. He still coaches tight ends.
When Nate Scheelhaase left Iowa State after the 2023 season to join the Los Angeles Rams staff, Campbell named Mouser to replace him as the new offensive coordinator.
“It was a pretty easy decision on who deserved the right to take over the reins of the offense,” Campbell said. “I still believe you have to be curious enough to continue to evolve and change and you have to be a great connector. He’s done an incredible job. He’s a great leader.”
Ask any of the Penn State offensive guys who played at Iowa State. They all give Mouser a ringing endorsement.
“He has no fear calling plays,” wide receiver Brett Eskildsen said. “That’s what makes him really good. He’s not scared to say on third-and-1, ‘Hey, we’re throwing this deep to you.’ Or take a shot on the first play of the game.
“At the same time he wants to play smashmouth football. We’re going to run it until you stop us. You never know what you’re going to get from him, which is the beauty of it.”
In 2024, Mouser’s first season in charge of the offense, the Cyclones started 8-0, reached the Big 12 title game, beat Miami (Fla.) 42-41 in the Pop-Tarts Bowl and set a school record for wins by going 11-2.
Last season, Iowa State started 5-0 before a series of injuries knocked out several regulars. Quarterback Rocco Becht, for example, played through a torn labrum, a sprained AC joint and two concussions. The Cyclones finished 8-4, 59th in total offense and 69th in scoring.
Yet Mouser remained true to his convictions.
“He’s confident in his calls,” quarterbacks coach Jake Waters said. “He doesn’t play not to lose. That’s what I love about him, what the quarterbacks love about him and what the whole offense loves about him.
“He wants to be aggressive. He wants to push the envelope and do things in a smart manner. That’s really special.”
Mouser’s ease with and care for others might be his secret sauce. Becht has described him as a “college student in an older man’s body,” a personality that allows him to connect with players.
“He’s a guy that’s really easy to like,” Tim Mouser said, biased as he might be. “He’s very loyal. What he tells you he’s going to do, he’s going to do. We always said in hockey, the same people you meet on the way up are the same people you meet on the way down.
“Be nice to everybody. I always instilled that in him. He’s just a caring, genuine guy who actually gives a (expletive deleted) about you.”
Many Penn State fans first heard about Mouser when he and offensive line coach Ryan Clanton chugged beer at a hockey game in January at Pegula Ice Arena. Waters said people should not let that episode fool them; Mouser can be as serious and competitive as anyone on the staff.
He would like to be a head coach one day, but for now he’s focused on doing the best job he can for Campbell.
“If someone can give me a lifetime contract to be the OC and tight ends coach for Coach Campbell, I’d sign it right away,” Mouser said. “I like working for him and like being the tight ends coach. I don’t ever want to be a walk-around coordinator or something in that vein.
“I love the development piece of coaching the tight end position. I like being involved. I like being responsible. I want to be vulnerable and authentic.”