Sports // Roy Bragg

The Offense Coordinator: Football imitates art

Texas A&M entered the season with a young offensive coordinator tutoring two former blue-chip quarterbacks. They led an offense loaded with blue-chip receivers and lofty expectations.

Flash forward 12 weeks. The Aggies once again limped through their traditional autumnal swoon to finish 8-4. The offense was incompetent on its best days. QB Kyle Allen transferred last week and now QB Kyler Murray announced he’s leaving.

And what of Jake Spavital, A&M’s offensive coordinator? To many fans, he’s Aggie Enemy No. 1. He ran off Allen (an unproven allegation, by the way). He can’t call plays, he hates winning and he probably hates Reveille, too.

It’s no better in Austin. Texas coach Charlie Strong used three offensive play-callers in 2015. When it came time to hire a new one, the school sent its muscle — school president Greg Fenves and athletic director Mike Perrin — with Strong to seal the deal with Tulsa’s Sterlin Gilbert.

All over football, the press box chair of the offensive coordinator, or OC, has become the hottest seat in the game. The OC is either the savior or the new black sheep of the football world, and sometimes both.

In this era of super-charged, spread offenses and anonymous Internet message boards, fans can target their ire at the guy calling the plays when things go wrong. This is great news for quarterbacks and head coaches.

How did the OC become football’s flashpoint?

In today’s game, an OC oversees an aerial circus that piles up hundreds of passing yards and 100 or more snaps per game. These days, a football game is like a tennis match, with the ball being hurled back and forth.

When things are going well and a team is winning, the OC is often described as a “mad scientist” or “quarterback whisperer.”

When things aren’t so good, however, he is known as a “dope” or “dummy” or “moron.”

Or Spav.

It wasn’t always this way, says football historian T.J. Troup. In the earliest days of the game, quarterbacks called the plays. In fact, it was against the rules for a coach to send in a play. A team that did that would get penalized. The rule was ultimately changed, and some coaches took advantage of it.

In the 1960s, the NFL was blessed with a wave of quarterbacks who wielded great arms and brilliant tactical minds. Legends such as Don Meredith, Johnny Unitas and Bart Starr called plays against NFL defenses that were relatively basic.

As defenses become more complicated in the 1970s, quarterbacks became less adept. The need for an extra set of eyes became apparent. Coaches began relying on assistants sitting in press boxes to opine on plays. By the 1980s, the modern-day offensive coordinator was a fixture.

Football, unlike science, marriage, business and art, rewards routine.

Troup, a college and high school coach in California for 40 years, is a big believer in it.

“We were up against a really good (college) team,” he said. “I’ve got a really good young offensive coordinator. So I explain to him that I’ve got a great fullback/tailback combination. I told him I wanted to run up the middle on every play. I told him to call the same play until they figured out to stop it.”

They never did.

“We ran that play 49 times in a row,” Troup said, laughing. “Pretty soon, their coach was wasting timeouts so he could go out and yell at his defense.”

That’s the kind of stuff that beats up an opponent and demoralizes it.

“If a play is working,” Troup said, “why would you go away from it?”

For a century, football has survived on that philosophy. Football is a discipline of pragmatism. Plays that worked 50 years ago will continue to work today if executed properly, even if the other team knows what’s about to happen.

It was boring, but this was how the game was played. These days, fans want points, and offensive coordinators want some credit.

This gridiron sea of change has emboldened offensive coordinators. The football rules of engagement have changed. It’s no longer a process; it’s about instant touchdown gratification.

We’ve all seen this in action. A team will be moving down the field with ease when suddenly it abandons what has been working and wastes three downs on the polar opposite of the successful strategy. I’ve seen it in high school, college and NFL games.

That means the next time you see the Cowboys opt to go deep on a second-and-one in their own half of the field, and then do it again, you’ll know why OC Scott Linehan dialed up that play.

He did it because he could.

Twitter: @roybragg