Which SEC coaches serve as the primary play-caller for their offense and/or defense?

From an interesting article by Rivals.com:

Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt and Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino are the only SEC head coaches that serve as the primary play-caller, and they both only do it on offense. No SEC head coach serves as the primary play-caller on defense.

Of the 120 Division I-A coaches, roughly a quarter call their own plays, either offensively or defensively (no Div I-A coach serves as the primary play-caller on both offense and defense).

Coaches that serve as the primary play-caller on offense include Nutt, Petrino, Dennis Erickson (Arizona State), Mike Leach (Texas Tech) and Jim Tressel (Ohio State).

Coaches that serve as the primary play-caller on defense include Bo Pelini (Nebraska) and Greg Schiano (Rutgers).

STEVE SPURRIER
Throughout his college football career (Duke, Florida, South Carolina), Steve Spurrier always served as the primary play-caller on offense, but he has now decided to give this responsibility to his son, Steve Spurrier, Jr. (it's amusing how Spurrier Senior is the Head Coach, and is also his own offensive coordinator, while his son is only the receivers coach -- maybe now that his son will be calling the offense plays, he will be promoted to offensive coordinator?). That will be interesting to see what a Spurrier football team will be like without Spurrier being the primary offensive play-caller.

CHARLIE WEIS
As for Charlie Weis, he also served as the primary play-caller on offense for ND, but now has decided to give this responsibility to his offensive coordinator, Mike Haywood. It's kinda surprising Weis would give up his responsibility as the primary offensive player caller, because I thought that's why ND hired him in the first place. Even Weis admits that "This is a tough one for me to do, but I'm trying to give them an opportunity to run the offense with me interjecting rather than me demanding and telling them everything that we're going to do," Weis said. "Play-calling is my greatest strength, but I'm the head coach, and I think that when you're play-calling on offense, you might not necessarily be the best head coach." It will be interesting to see what ND is going to be like without Weis running the offense (although it couldn't be worse than last year).

WHY WOULD A COACH GIVE UP RESPONSIBILITIES AS THE PRIMARY PLAY-CALLER?

WHY WOULD A COACH KEEP THE RESPONSIBILITY OF BEING THE PRIMARY PLAY-CALLER?

http://collegefootball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=803230

 

Re: Which SEC coaches serve as the primary play-caller for their offense and/or defen

edit: im wrong.

second time today ive had to cover for being wrong with a hot chick.

 

Re: Which SEC coaches serve as the primary play-caller for their offense and/or defen

Keep being wrong.

Signed,
Everyone

 

Re: Which SEC coaches serve as the primary play-caller for their offense and/or defen

If someone told me That Fulmer was going to call the plays for the Vols this year then I would consider becoming a Vanderbilt fan.

 

Re: Which SEC coaches serve as the primary play-caller for their offense and/or defen

Well, here's one question I have:

How much is Miles to blame for bad offensive and defensive calls? I remember I read an article by a national journalist last season pointing out that one of the main reasons Miles sucked to him is because he is such a poor play-caller (even though Oklahoma State was happy enough with his play-calling as their offensive coordinator that they made him their head coach). I've read posts here where people (even respected, knowledgeable regular members) claimed that one of Miles flaws is that he is a poor play-caller. I remember the Arkansas game, listening to fellow fans, both here and irl, complaining about play calls that Miles made in that game. I also heard discussion regarding how wise Mile's play-calling was with the pass to Byrd at the end of the Auburn game.

But how much is Miles to blame for play-calling? Like the above article explains, the game is so sophisticated now that it's pretty hard for a head coach to have the time to break down film, plan a game plan, call the plays, etc... which is why even Charlie Weis and Steve Spurrier have decided to pass those reigns on to a subordinate.

Sure, Miles is responsible for hiring and firing his subordinates, and for supervising them to make sure they are doing their jobs right, but when it comes to play-calling on the sidelines, wouldn't it be wise for Miles to defer to the guy who was breaking down film on the opponent all week, and has a better idea of what the best plays to call would be? I mean, sure, during the week before the game, Miles probably had his coordinators give him daily briefings of what they learned from the film, what their game strategy was going to be and why... but after Miles was satisfied with the fact that they had done their homework and had come up with a great game plan, why not defer to them when it comes to play-calling on the side line? And if that's what's going on, why blame Miles for poor play calling, when that wasn't something he was primarily responsible for?

 

Re: Which SEC coaches serve as the primary play-caller for their offense and/or defen

You probably should anyways.

Signed,
People With Teeth, III

 

Re: Which SEC coaches serve as the primary play-caller for their offense and/or defen

Here's that article I'm talking about:

http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/story/7482072

It was in the aftermath of the Arkansas loss that got all kinds of Tiger fans all riled up with hatred toward Miles, and somehow even got this national journalist named Matt Zemek all angry at Miles just the same.

Despite the fact that Miles did "match headsets with Jim Tressell" in the undisputed National Championship game, I'm more interested with how the author keeps praising Miles as a head coach in the big picture of a head coach, but trashes him as a play-caller, a game strategist. But like the article I wrote about in my original post on this thread explains, even the great play-caller coaches (Spurrier, Tedford, Weis, Richt, etc), have realized that the big picture of being a good head coach is more important that being a play-caller or a game strategist (areas of responsibility which they have turned over to their subordinates).

 

Re: Which SEC coaches serve as the primary play-caller for their offense and/or defen

Go look at the best coaches of all time -- almost all of them were the best GM's and psychologists in one -- they let the coordinators do their jobs, all while they placed fear in the players minds.

 

Re: Which SEC coaches serve as the primary play-caller for their offense and/or defen

Miles makes a couple of calls a game, all coaches do. All of those paraphrases were worthless in that sense because Crowton calls 99% of the plays. And I'm glad he made the calls he did last season or we wouldn't have won a national championship.

 

Re: Which SEC coaches serve as the primary play-caller for their offense and/or defen

Just read this from an article someone posted on here:

I would not be thrilled if I was a Cock fan if I read that quote by Spurrier, Sr.