Are College Football's Play-Calling Coaches a Dying Breed?

This month, South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier announced that he would be calling all of the Gamecocks' offensive plays in 2010, something not widely done among his fellow NCAA peers.

The past two seasons, "the Head Ball Coach" (don't call him old), had delegated some of the play-calling authority to other members of his staff, most notably his son.

The move created controversy among South Carolina's fans, who felt that the elder Spurrier was abandoning something that made him one of the SEC's more legendary coaches.

A bit of an overreaction? Perhaps.

But keep in mind that, while Spurrier hasn't been able to duplicate his success as the head coach of the Florida Gators, his 35 wins have come during the Gamecocks' best five-year period in South Carolina football history.

Look it up.

So why the change?

The Gamecocks' rushing offense was dead last in the SEC in '09, and Spurrier himself has said he has been too tolerant of South Carolina's soft play.

This season, Spurrier claims that he's going to "yell and scream and be a jerk".

In other words, he'll be back to being his usual self.

So is this indicative of a shifting philosophy in college football or just an exception to a loosely-held rule?

In order to unearth the answer, perhaps it would be helpful to relate an old doctor's adage:

"As physicians become more specialized, general practitioners are learning less and less about more and more. Meanwhile, specialists are learning more and more about less and less. Eventually, there will be two groups of doctors: those who know nothing about everything and those who know everything about nothing."

Okay, so that's a bit of an exaggeration. But, like most critical statements, there's more than a little truth to it.

The same can be said for practically any occupation, from accounting to zoology.

As it relates to football, there are undoubtedly many older fans that can remember when quarterbacks called their own plays, especially in the NFL.

During the Steelers' heyday, this author distinctly remembers Terry Bradshaw calling his offense's plays with regularity.

Now, it's virtually unheard of, unless the quarterback calls an audible.

As times changed, it became the domain of the coaching staff, and in the interest of increased specialization, the offensive coordinator.

In college football, the SEC leads the nation among BCS conferences with head coaches who pull double-duty. This season, there will be three: Spurrier, Arkansas' Bobby Petrino and Ole Miss' Houston Nutt.

Almost two years ago, an article on Rivals.com chronicled this very subject.

In it, the author described how fewer head coaches were calling their own plays.

At the time of it's publication, it was believed that approximately one-fourth of FBS head coaches were calling their own offensive plays or making their own defensive calls.

Not to diminish the efforts of non-BCS schools, but many of the coaches mentioned in the article were from schools like North Texas, Western Michigan and Northern Illinois.

Some, like then-Louisville head coach, Steve Kragthorpe, and former Buffalo Bulls head coach, Turner Gill, have either been fired or moved on to other schools. This author would also be remiss to exclude former Red Raiders' coach, Mike Leach, from the list. The offenses he ran were routinely considered to be among the best in the nation.

Sure, there were (and still are) other notable (and some quite successful exceptions), like Jim Tressel at Ohio State and Brian Kelly, now at Notre Dame, but the main thrust of the article was that many coaches were relinquishing play-calling in order to better concentrate on the overall status of their team.

However, there are still coaches who take great pleasure in "calling the shots" for their respective offenses. Both Nutt and Petrino have made public remarks to that effect.

Petrino said that it helped him "develop closer relationships" with his offensive players.

Leach claimed that it was "one of the most exciting" parts of being a coach.

And while coaches, like USC's Lane Kiffin, have stated their desire to call plays as head coach (which is different story for another day), it seems that more and more head coaches are ceding that responsibility.

In recent years, Maryland's Ralph Friedgen, Duke's David Cutcliffe and Georgia's Mark Richt are just a few higher-profile coaches that have handed off their play-calling duties to full-time offensive coordinators.

According to Richt, it was like a weight removed from his shoulders.

Obviously, there are a lot of factors that contribute to a coach's ability (and willingness) to call his team's offensive plays.

A coach's pedigree would be chief among them. Is it rooted in offensive or defensive philosophy?

But as today's coaches spend less time worrying about building a legacy at a particular school and more time building a resume, two additional factors have steadily risen above the others.

The first would be a coach's sense of job security.

After all, if a team's offense under performs, a full-time offensive coordinator provides an extra layer of insulation from termination.

The second, and perhaps more important, is ego.

Otherwise, would a "short list" like this contain names like Spurrier, Leach and Kiffin?

If you believe that it's just a coincidence, I've got some ocean-front property in Arizona for sale.