Spring football practice began Friday at Penn State. The 15, thrice-weekly workouts that will culminate in the annual Blue-White game April 16 are important, but let’s not go nuts.

It is very unlikely that spring will reveal a winner of the starting quarterback battle between Trace McSorley and Tommy Stevens, or the middle linebacker competition between Nyeem Wartman-White and Jason Cabinda.

We won’t know much more about the moribund offensive line or special teams on April 16 than we did on March or February or January 16.

The rebuild of a defensive line that is losing three studs to the NFL will be far from complete.

Spring ball matters this year because it pushes Joe Moorhead to center stage.

You may recall that the Nittany Lions ended 2015 on a four-game losing streak, with an offense so clunky - despite a 1,000-yard rusher and an NFL draftee at quarterback - that head coach James Franklin fired coordinator John Donovan less than a day after the regular-season ending, 55-28 loss to Michigan State.

Enter Moorhead, the former Fordham head coach and quarterback there and at Pittsburgh Central Catholic.

“We’ve been a multiple, no-huddle offense,” he said in a 2015 instructional video.

“We’ve looked to dictate the tempo of the game at a very fast tempo. And try to keep it simple and get the ball to our playmakers, and get our speed and space.”

Moorhead has a resume. He’s been a coordinator at Akron and UConn. He took over a struggling Fordham program in 2012, and went 6-5 the first year, followed by 12-2, 11-3 and 9-3, with an FCS playoff berth in each of the last three years.

Consider’ the Moorhead Rams’ points per game, 31.1 in year one, followed by 37.6, 40.6 and 36.8.

It’s not some much the plays themselves, Franklin said at a press conference last week, as how they’re presented.

“I think the important part, is how you package things, and how you're able to take things that may seem complex and make them seem easy to other people,’’ Franklin said.

“Joe's got a really good way of installing things and making it look like you're doing a lot of things when you're really not.’’

Moorhead’s teams have averaged around 75 plays per game (that’s a lot), with the coaches making most of the calls once they see the defense at the line of scrimmage, which doesn’t seem conducive to a fast-break pace.

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At the very least, it would seem that there is will be no time and space for confusion.

“I think where the art comes is, you know, how much do you give them (in the spring)?’’ Franklin said.

“Do you give them too much on day one and they don't have the type of success and they are not confident, or do you give them too little? From what I've seen, I feel really good about that.”

It will be, essentially, a spread offense. That doesn’t mean throwing the ball all over the place. Chase Edmonds, a Fordham junior-to-be running back from Central Dauphin East, ran for 3,486 yards and 43 touchdowns in two seasons under Moorhead.

The learning style will be conceptual.

“In our passing game structure, every one of our routes falls into a concept or family,” Moorhead said in the video. “That way, our kids know what the defining characteristic of a concept is instead of rote memorization.

“Once they understand what the concept is and what the play is, then there are rules that go with each pass route.”

Moorhead should have enough weapons; Penn State’s two best position-groups are running back and wide receiver and its best player is probably Saquon Barkley, the brilliant sophomore running back, who no doubt looks at Edmonds’ numbers with delight.

Critically, the offense is expected to be “friendlier,’’ to an offensive line that could use a friend.

Wider formations should eliminate clutter and clarify assignments for the linemen. Compared to more pro-style sets, the spread is less dependent on the line physically dominating up front.

A key intangible piece is already in place, according to Franklin. The offensive players are all Moorhead’s guys. Franklin gets to be CEO.

“We try to empower all of our assistant coaches to be the head coach,’’ Franklin said.

“With Joe being a head coach in his background, he's really done a great job of taking that and running with it. Not only being able to implement his scheme, but being able to motivate and lead his side of the ball.’’

If the players understand it in a month, the thinking goes, they’ll be able to perfect it in August and execute it in September.

It starts now.