The National Football Foundation, College Hall of Fame and the Central Pennsylvania Chapter, has selected Chicago Bears QB Coach, and Clearfield Alumni, Andrew Janocko, as the guest speaker to its 25th Annual Scholar-Athlete Awards banquet.
Janocko has been named the quarterback coach for the Chicago Bears for the 2022 NFL season. He will be working under Head Coach, Matt Ebeflus. Janocko will be in charge of developing 2nd year quarterback, Justin Fields.
To highlight Janocko's most recent positions, he was the Minnesota's Vikings quarterback coach in his 7th season with the Vikings, and 9th overall in the NFL in 2021. He was also Minnesota's wide receivers coach during the 2020 season. Transitioning to coaching the quarterbacks and working alongside offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak in 2021, Janocko benefitted from his broad understanding of offensive coaching from the line to skill positions.
Janocko has an impressive coaching career coaching Vikings, Kirk Cousins. Cousins became the only QB in franchise history to have 3 seasons as a 3,000-yard passer, with a 1,000-yard rusher (Cook), and a 1,000-yard receiver (Jefferson). Cousins finished the season with a 103.1 passer rating, which is 4th best in the league.
On top of guiding Cousins to another record-setting season, Janocko helped to further develop Sean Mannion, who played in his first game since 2019 and made his third career start. Mannion threw for a career-high 189 yards and tallied his first career touchdown pass to WR K.J. Osborn.
Justin Jefferson had one of the best seasons in the history of the NFL for a rookie WR under Janocko in 2020. Jefferson finished his first season with an NFL rookie record 1,400 receiving yards (in the Super Bowl era) and a Vikings rookie record 88 catches, along with 7 TD's receiving. Jefferson became the first NFL rookie WR to earn Associated Press All-Pro honors (1st and 2nd team) since Randy Moss in 1998, earned a Pro Bowl berth and was named to the All- Rookie team. Veteran WR Adam Thielen finished with a career high 14 receiving TD's, the 5th most in team history and 3rd best mark in the NFL. Janocko arrived in Minnesota after coaching QB's at Division II Mercyhurst during the 2014 season. At Mercyhurst, Janocko guided Brendan Boylan to 3 Pennsylvania State Athletics Conference West Division Offensive Player of the Week honors and a Division II National Player of the Week honor. Boylan finished the season 192-of-319 (60.2 percent) for 2,952 yards, 29 TD's and 8 INT's.
From 2012-13, Janocko received his first experience coaching at the NFL level when he served as an offensive assistant with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. While in Tampa Bay, Janocko was responsible for working with then-Head Coach Greg Schiano and Offensive Coordinator Mike Sullivan in coordinating practice schedules and breaking down film. In 2012, Janocko had a hands-on role with the quarterbacks and kick returners before working with WR's and KR's in 2013. In 2011, Janocko served as a graduate assistant under Schiano at Rutgers with the QB unit.
A 3-year letter winner at Pitt, Janocko served as a backup QB and holder on special teams. Janocko spent his 1st 2 seasons as a walk-on before earning a scholarship his final 2 seasons. A 3-time member of the Big East All-Academic Team, he graduated from Pitt in 2010 with a degree in history and minor in political science.
A native of Clearfield, PA., Janocko was the starting QB at Clearfield Area High School, where his father, Tim, served as the head coach. He led the school to a pair of district championships and was a 2-time Pennsylvania Football News All-State honoree. Janocko is married to wife Natalie and they have a son, Noah. They currently reside in Chicago.
"The Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Football Foundation College Hall of Fame is honored to have Andrew Janocko as the featured speaker for our 25th Annual Awards Banquet," said Chapter President John Kulka. "Andrew graduated from Clearfield Area High School and from the University of Pittsburgh. He was a former 2007 Central PA Chapter of the National Football Scholar-Athlete. The Chapter is extremely pleased to have Andrew back to share some of his career shaping experiences with the outstanding student athletes from the high schools and colleges within the Central Pennsylvania Chapter."
