The Best Offensive Minds in College Football
Now more than ever, college football is an offensive game.
Just look at the past four teams to play for the national title: Florida State and Auburn two seasons ago and Oregon and Ohio State in 2014. All four averaged more than 500 yards and 39.5 points per game, and none finished lower than No. 7 on Football Outsiders' offensive F/+ ratings.
By extension, the best offensive minds in the sport are more important now than ever. If winning the national title entails a dominant offense, they put their teams at a huge advantage.
To narrow the names on this list, we considered statistics, X's and O's, creativity and longevity. The only thing more important than a track record of success is a long track record of success.
Sound off below and let us know what you think.
One Tier Below
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The eight offensive minds that follow are in a class of their own. Many other names were considered, but all belonged on a separate tier. Some of those names are young, some are old, and some might end up on the proper list in the near future.
They at least deserve a shoutout:
Head Coaches
- Bret Bielema, Arkansas
- Sonny Dykes, California
- Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State
- Jim Harbaugh, Michigan
- Tom Herman, Houston
- Dana Holgorsen, West Virginia
- Dan Mullen, Mississippi State
- Brian Kelly, Notre Dame
- Philip Montgomery, Tulsa
- Chad Morris, SMU
- Chris Petersen, Washington
Coordinators
- Sonny Cumbie, TCU
- Scott Frost, Oregon
- Lane Kiffin, Alabama
- Seth Littrell, North Carolina
- Doug Meacham, TCU
- Jay Norvell, Arizona State
- Lincoln Riley, Oklahoma
- Jake Spavital, Texas A&M
Art Briles, Baylor
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Where He's Been
- High school assistant (1979-1983)
- High school head coach (1984-1999)
- Texas Tech RB coach (2000-2002)
- Houston head coach (2003-2007)
- Baylor head coach (2008-Present)
What He Runs
An offense unlike any we've ever seen. Briles mixes elements of various schemes, although his obsession with vertical passing skews closer to the air raid than anything. Still, his last four leading rushers have finished No. 4, No. 1, No. 3, No. 1 and No. 2 in the Big 12 in rushing yards per game, so it's not like he's gone full-Mike Leach.
Signature Season
2011. He has since accomplished more, but no year was more important. Baylor led the nation in yards per play (7.63) and finished No. 2 in Football Outsiders' F/+ offensive ratings, and Robert Griffin III won the Heisman Trophy. Most of all, though, the Bears won 10 games for the first time since 1980. (They hadn't even won eight since 1991.)
Quote to Note
"It started with my first college football job coaching in Hamlin in '84-'85. My first year there, we had a great football team, ran the split-back veer, went 13-0-1. In the second year, I saw that if you got deep in the playoffs, you're gonna face people with talent just as good or better than yours. So what I looked for was an edge, something different; so in '85 we went to the one-back, four wides and went 14-1.
"
-Briles on his offensive evolution, per Spencer Hall of SB Nation
Jimbo Fisher, Florida State
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Where He's Been
- Samford QB coach (1988-1990)
- Samford OC/QB coach (1991-1992)
- Auburn QB coach (1993-1998)
- Cincinnati OC/QB coach (1999)
- LSU OC/QB coach (2000-2006)
- Florida State OC/QB coach (2007-2009)
- Florida State head coach (2010-Present)
What He Runs
One of the last great pro-style offenses. Fisher likes his quarterback under center, typically with a one-back set, three receivers and a tight end, although he's willing to spread it out. He'll run the ball down your throat or dial up 50 passes, depending on what you give him. He makes some of the best second-half adjustments in football.
Signature Season
2013. Florida State's offense was a machine, leading the country in yards per play (7.67) and ranking No. 2 in points per game (51.6). Jameis Winston won the Heisman Trophy and led the Noles to a 14-0 record and national championship. From the offensive line to the running backs to the pass-catchers, this offense was all strengths, no weaknesses.
Quote to Note
"Being able to play conventional plays into our hands because not many people are doing it. It used to be the teams that spread, you don’t know how to play it [on defense]. Now all teams are playing spread, it makes the team you’re playing, say they’re a 4-2-5 nickel defense, now they have regular people running with a 260-pound tight end, 240-pound fullback and take an iso or counter. How much time do they see it in practice and practice against it?
"
-Fisher, per Jared Shanker and David M. Hale of ESPN.com
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Mark Helfrich, Oregon
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Where He's Been
- Boise State QB coach (1998-2000)
- Arizona State QB coach (2001-2005)
- Colorado OC/QB coach (2006-2008)
- Oregon OC/QB coach (2009-2012)
- Oregon head coach (2013-Present)
What He Runs
A Dirk Koetter offense at a Chip Kelly pace. Koetter, under whom Helfrich worked at Boise State and Arizona State, can be seen in all the play-action vertical passing concepts. Kelly, under whom Helfrich worked at Oregon, can be seen in the manic drive structures. Helfrich has done a masterful job of conflating his two mentors.
Signature Season
2014. Oregon finished No. 2 in yards per play despite injuries along the offensive line and at receiver. Quarterback Marcus Mariota won the Heisman Trophy and led the Ducks to a Pac-12 title and a Rose Bowl victory before falling to Ohio State in the national title game.
Quote to Note
"He can do it all in his head. He doesn't have to draw the pictures on the board. Not many people can do that. He sees the game through the quarterback's eyes. We all have ideas, but if your quarterback can't execute those ideas, they are lines on a paper. Mark is as smart a football guy as I know."
-Koetter on Helfrich, per Ray Glier of Bleacher Report
Mike Leach, Washington State
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Where He's Been
- Iowa Wesleyan OC (1989-1991)
- Valdosta State OC (1992-1996)
- Kentucky OC (1997-1998)
- Oklahoma OC (1999)
- Texas Tech head coach (2000-2009)
- Washington State head coach (2012-Present)
What He Runs
Honestly, there's no good word for it. We call it the air raid, but even that seems too…conventional. The most important thing to know is that Leach hates running the football and always has. Washington State has 1,527 pass attempts to 486 carries since his arrival.
Signature Season
2008. Texas Tech rose as high as No. 2 in The Associated Press rankings after starting the season 10-0. Michael Crabtree caught 97 passes for 1,165 yards and 19 touchdowns, winning the Biletnikoff Award as the nation's best receiver and leading the Red Raiders to their first (and only) 11-win season since 1973.
Quote to Note
"Pirates function as a team. There were a lot of castes and classes in England at the time. But with pirates, it didn't matter if you were black, white, rich or poor. The object was to get a treasure. If the captain did a bad job, you could just overthrow him."
-Leach on his fascination with pirates, per Mark Schlabach of ESPN.com
Gus Malzahn, Auburn
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Where He's Been
- High school assistant (1991)
- High school head coach (1992-2005)
- Arkansas OC/WR coach (2006)
- Tulsa OC/QB coach (2007-2008)
- Auburn OC/QB coach (2009-2011)
- Arkansas State head coach (2012)
- Auburn head coach (2013-Present)
What He Runs
The fastest offense in college football. We're talking about a guy who literally wrote the book on going hurry-up. His run-pass splits vary based on personnel—at Tulsa, for example, he passed more often than he has since returning to Auburn—but the run will always be featured. So will the tempo. Also, did we mention the tempo?
Signature Season
2013. Malzahn was the offensive coordinator when Auburn won the 2010 BCS National Championship, but his first year back on the Plains—a year in which Auburn went from 3-9 to national runner-up—was easily the best of his career. The offense leapt from No. 118 in yards per game (305.0) to No. 11 (501.3) and scored 59 points against Missouri in the SEC Championship Game. Running back Tre Mason rushed for 1,816 yards and attended the Heisman ceremony.
Quote to Note
"Offensively, we're a two-back, play-action team that will run our offense at a two-minute pace the entire game. Our goal is to play faster than anybody in college football. We feel like, if you can execute your offense at a fast pace, it's a big advantage."
-Malzahn in July 2013, per Chris Vannini of Coaching Search
Urban Meyer, Ohio State
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Where He's Been
- High school assistant (1985)
- Ohio State TE coach (1986)
- Ohio State WR coach (1987)
- Illinois State OLB coach (1988)
- Illinois State QB/WR coach (1989)
- Colorado State WR coach (1990-1995)
- Notre Dame WR coach (1996-2000)
- Bowling Green head coach (2001-2002)
- Utah head coach (2003-2004)
- Florida head coach (2005-2010)
- Ohio State head coach (2012-Present)
What He Runs
A classic spread-option offense. Meyer creates as many favorable matchups as possible, believing this to be the best way to score. That is why he needs a mobile quarterback: because QB runs against linebackers are one of the best mismatches on the field. The same goes for tall receivers (think Riley Cooper at Florida).
Signature Season
2008. Meyer's Florida Gators lost to Ole Miss early in the season but stormed back to win the national title. No player rushed for 700 yards, but four players rushed for between 600 and 675, and quarterback Tim Tebow threw 30 touchdowns to four interceptions.
Quote to Note
"The most important adjustment Ohio State made after the loss to [Virginia Tech] was to improve at running the ball on the perimeter of the defense—and to do so with the running back.
Traditionally, Meyer…would have relied on the QB to pull the ball on an option play and try to get to the edge, but the Hokies crashed their safeties down on the quarterback. … In response, Meyer and [offensive coordinator Tom] Herman turned to one of the staple plays of their title game opponent: the Oregon Ducks’ sweep.
"
Rich Rodriguez, Arizona
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Where He's Been
- Salem defensive assistant (1986-1987)
- Salem head coach (1988)
- West Virginia OLB coach (1989)
- Glanville State head coach (1990-1996)
- Tulane OC (1997-1998)
- Clemson OC (1999-2000)
- West Virginia head coach (2001-2007)
- Michigan head coach (2008-2010)
- Arizona head coach (2012-Present)
What He Runs
Rodriguez is known for a no-huddle spread option that was always—and still is—ahead of its time. He keeps his quarterback in the shotgun and runs a famous zone-read play from that formation. He is willing to adjust based on personnel, which explains Arizona's 53-47 pass-run ratio in 2012, but for the most part he keeps the ball on the ground.
Signature Season
2007. A loaded backfield (quarterback Pat White, running backs Steve Slaton and Noel Devine, fullback Owen Schmitt) led West Virginia to an 11-2 record and No. 6 finish in the Associated Press rankings. After a disastrous end to the regular season against Pittsburgh (L, 13-9), the Mountaineers annihilated Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, 48-28.
Quote to Note
"We always thought the more people that do this, there’s going to be more ways to defend it, we better stay on our toes and try to keep being progressive with it, tweak it but not lose our core base about it.
The core and the base is still the same but because there are so many spread teams and such a variety of it, it’s forced us to look a little deeper at what we’re doing and not be so egotistical that if we find another team that’s tweaking it a little better than us, let’s do it ourselves.
"
-Rodriguez in August 2012, per Ted Miller of ESPN.com
Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M
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Where He's Been
- Wyoming WR coach (1991-1992)
- Minnesota WR coach (1993-1996)
- Minnesota QB coach (1997)
- Purdue WR coach (1998-2000)
- Texas A&M OC (2001-2002)
- Oklahoma ST/TE coach (2003-2005)
- Oklahoma OC/WR coach (2006-2007)
- Houston head coach (2008-2011)
- Texas A&M head coach (2012-Present)
What He Runs
A spacing-based attack. Sumlin championed the spread at Purdue in the late 1990s, back when it was still considered radical, and combined it with some air-raid concepts at Oklahoma. Quick completions (tunnel screens, hitches, etc.) get the quarterback in rhythm early, loosening the defense throughout the game.
Signature Season
2012. Texas A&M was supposed to get its butt kicked by the big, bad SEC. How could it compete with a first-year head coach and some redshirt freshman quarterback no one had heard of? Four months later, that no-name was Johnny Football, who won the Heisman Trophy and led the Aggies to their first 11-win season since 1998.
Quote to Note
"The great benefit of the Sumlin brand of the air raid…is that the practice schedule is designed to foster quick development. They run up-tempo practices geared around getting as many reps as possible, while the air raid practice schedule is all about quick install of a simple offense and then hammering home details from that point on.
"
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
