Forde-Yard Dash: Can These Coordinators Influence Their New Teams’ Fortunes?

New Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly is the most newsworthy hire, but a handful of other top assistants will be counted on heavily this season.

Ohio State Buckeyes offensive coordinator Chip Kelly is one of the top coordinators in the sport this season expected to change the fortunes of his unit. / Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football (battle armor sold separately in Oxford for Miami Ohio’s war with Alabama over a kicker). First Quarter: The Buzzin’ Dozen. Second Quarter: The Strength-of-Schedule Debate.

Third Quarter: Savior Coordinators?

An annual rite of autumn is the unveiling of a new offensive or defensive coordinator who is expected to change the fortunes of a unit—and, in some cases, an entire team. The Dash takes a look at nine situations where the head coach remains the same, but one (or more) of his coordinators is a new man in charge of saving the day.

Chip Kelly (22), Ohio State Buckeyes offensive coordinator. This was by far the most newsworthy coordinator hire of the offseason, with the Buckeyes grabbing the former UCLA head coach to call plays and move Ryan Day into CEO mode. A long-established offensive wizard, Kelly gravitates toward the player development and strategy side of the sport and returning to an assistant role gives him more hands-on ability to do that. The fact he’s working for a guy who played for him at New Hampshire should make this melding of alpha-male offensive minds work.

“You could be in a room and argue with each other and then walk out the door with your arms around each other because there’s just trust there,” Day says. “And I learned so much from him growing up, not only as a player, but then as a coach. He’s forgotten more football than almost any coach in the game. I think he missed the coaching part of football.”

D’Anton Lynn (23), USC Trojans defensive coordinator. Before Kelly left UCLA, he’d already lost his rising-star DC to the crosstown rival Trojans. Lincoln Riley held on to the ineffective Alex Grinch too long, tolerating a defense that was nowhere near physical enough. He needed to make a splash hire to reverse course and rekindle optimism in his program, and Lynn certainly qualified. In his lone season as the DC at UCLA, the Bruins gave up nearly 11 fewer points per game and 101 fewer yards per game than in the previous season, leading the late Pac-12 in total defense. Just 34 years old, Lynn comes from good defensive stock—his father, Anthony, was the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers from 2017–20 and has been an NFL coach for 25 seasons.

Bobby Petrino (24), Arkansas Razorbacks offensive coordinator. There is a lot of weirdness that comes with this hire, but that’s kind of par for the Petrino career course. He was the highly successful head coach of the Razorbacks, right up until that infamous Harley ride in 2012. Petrino crashed his bike and his career by taking a female employee he was having an affair with on a spin, then lying about the circumstances surrounding it. But Arkansans are a forgiving lot, especially when they need someone to jump-start what was the 107th-ranked offense in the nation in 2023. For head coach Sam Pittman, this hire had to come with some misgivings—if the offense is performing well but the Hogs aren’t winning, does he walk in to find Petrino with his feet up on his desk one morning as the interim head coach?

There will be a lot of eyes on Petrino as the Arkansas offensive coordinator. / Nathan Papes/Springfield News-Leader / USA TODAY NETWORK

Tim Lester (25), Iowa Hawkeyes offensive coordinator. Improving the Hawkeyes’ Exxon Valdez of an offense should be the easiest job in college football, but it comes with some awkwardness attached. Lester is replacing Brian Ferentz, who is the son of Kirk Ferentz, who has been the untouchable ruler of Iowa football for the entirety of the 21st century. (Untouchable unless you’re the NCAA, which recently nailed Kirk for recruiting violations. Iowa has suspended him for the season opener. In an un-Harbaugh-like moment of accountability, Ferentz owned the violation and publicly apologized for it.) So while Lester seems like a lock to improve a unit that wheezed to 17.7 and 15.4 points per game the last two seasons, he still will have to do so under the management umbrella of one of the most conservative coaches in the sport. 

Andy Kotelnicki (26), Penn State Nittany Lions offensive coordinator. Speaking of Big Ten teams yearning to score points against quality opponents, James Franklin is trying his sixth OC in 11 seasons and third in the last five. Kotelnicki dialed up some splashy stuff while working for Lance Leipold at both Buffalo and Kansas, and he will now try to unlock quarterback Drew Allar and a receiving corps that labored to make big plays. The good news was that former five-star recruit Allar threw only two interceptions in 2023; the bad news is that his cautiousness led to him averaging just 6.8 yards per attempt, tied for 70th nationally. That dipped as low as 4.5 yards per attempt against Ohio State and Iowa, and 3 YPA against Michigan.

Mike Denbrock (27), Notre Dame Fighting Irish offensive coordinator. Notre Dame and Brian Kelly are like two divorcees in a custody dispute over Denbrock. Kelly got him first and kept him for two seasons at LSU, with great results—the Tigers won the SEC West the first year and Jayden Daniels won the Heisman Trophy the second. But now Marcus Freeman has grabbed him back in South Bend, reuniting with a former colleague when both were assistants at Cincinnati. The Irish offense has had periods of explosiveness and stretches of struggle under Freeman, scoring 21 or fewer points in five of their seven losses the last two years. If Denbrock can unlock Duke Blue Devils transfer QB Riley Leonard, he will be the toast of South Bend—and Kelly will not get visitation rights.

Seth Littrell (28), Oklahoma Sooners offensive coordinator. After directing a 42-points-per-game attack in Norman last year, Jeff Lebby departed to become the head coach at Mississippi State. The reins have been turned over to Littrell, a former head coach at North Texas who got his indoctrination to offense as an assistant to Mike Leach at Texas Tech. Littrell knows how to dial up a modern spread attack, but he’s working with a first-year starting QB in Jackson Arnold, a highly touted player out of Texas. Their first foray together, in the Alamo Bowl last year, was a three-interception, one-fumble struggle for Arnold. Expect better in 2024—and it will need to be, given the SEC schedule.

Geoff Collins (29), North Carolina Tar Heels defensive coordinator. Gene Chizik did a lot of good defensive work during the course of his coaching career, but not much of it was during his final two seasons assisting Mack Brown in Chapel Hill. After the Heels gave up 36.3 points during their last four games of 2023, Brown finally moved on from Chizik and hired Collins. He has ACC head-coaching experience (at Georgia Tech) and coordinated some salty defenses at Mississippi State and Florida in the 2010s. Entering life after Drake Maye, North Carolina will need to generate more stops and be less reliant on outscoring opponents.

Jake Spavital (30), Baylor Bears offensive coordinator. The Dave Aranda job save campaign turns to a new coordinator and new quarterback, with Spavital arriving to coach Toledo transfer Dequan Finn. Spavital is an up-tempo, spread guy who was the head coach at Texas State from 2019 to ’22. He will look to quicken the Bears’ pace of play, while also taking advantage of Finn’s dual-threat capability. Baylor hasn’t had much of a QB running threat under Aranda until bringing in Finn, who has more than 1,600 rushing yards in his college career. That skill could be useful if the Bears’ offensive line isn’t improved after giving up the most sacks in the Big 12 last season.