Forde-Yard Dash: Rating Eight New Coordinators Midway Through College Football Season

Staff changes always produce big hopes for newfound success, but half of these coaches have struggled to meet expectations.

Penn State offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki talks to Nittany Lions quarterback Drew Allar during the spring game. / Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football, where even the cows are angry with Mike Gundy these days. First Quarter: Twelve Angry People. Second Quarter: CFP Prediction.

Third Quarter: Love-Hate Coordinator Relationships

Staff changes always produce big expectations for new success. The Dash examines the work by eight new coordinators—half of whom the fans currently love, and half they don’t.

Andy Kotelnicki (25), Penn State Nittany Lions offensive coordinator. Relationship status: Love. Imported from Kansas to jazz up a staid attack, he’s done the job. Scoring is down two points per game compared to last season, but Penn State’s average yards per play is way up (5.6 to 7.2), pass efficiency is way up (139.4 to 179.9) and explosive plays are up (3.6 per game of 20 yards or more to five per game).

Quarterback Drew Allar is significantly improved—his accuracy is up 10 percentage points and his yards per attempt has risen from 6.8 to 10.2. But the most interesting change in the Penn State offense has been the creative incorporation of tight end Tyler Warren as a multipurpose weapon.

Warren had 49 career catches in his first three seasons at Penn State, not emerging as a major threat until the Nittany Lions’ bowl game last year. This season he has 40 catches in six games, capped by an NCAA tight end record-tying 17 receptions for 224 yards against the USC Trojans on Saturday. Warren was the first tight end to record a 200-yard receiving game since Utah’s Dalton Kincaid did it in 2022 against USC. (You may detect a pattern there.)

Warren lined up at traditional tight end locations, but also was split wide, in the backfield—and, on one occasion, snapped the ball as center and then sprinted downfield to catch a touchdown. (The play was legal due to Penn State’s unconventional formation, with Warren the end player on the line of scrimmage and all other linemen to his right.)

Of course, Penn State has often looked good enough offensively until it played either Ohio State or Michigan, then things fell apart. So the full measure of Kotelnicki’s impact cannot be known until the Buckeyes visit State College on Nov. 2. But up to this point, Penn State is less drab offensively than it’s been in recent years.

Kane Wommack (26), Alabama Crimson Tide defensive coordinator. Relationship status: Hate. He’s on the brink of history, and that’s not a good thing.

Alabama has given up 25 or more points to its last three opponents: 34 to Georgia, 40 to Vanderbilt, 25 to South Carolina. The last time the Tide gave up 25 or more in four straight games was 1955, when they went 0–10 under the unfortunate leadership of J.B. “Ears” Whitworth. You never want to be lumped in statistically with Ears, whose career record at Bama was 4–24–2. 

We’ll see how Alabama does against Tennessee on Saturday.

Wommack left the head coach job at South Alabama to become a fan piñata in Tuscaloosa.

Alabama currently is tied for fourth in the SEC in yards allowed per play at a respectable 4.64, but 13th in yards allowed per game at 342.5. That tells the story: the Tide D cannot consistently get off the field, giving up 42 conversions on third and fourth downs. Alabama is averaging just 27 minutes and 43 seconds of possession per game.

Marcus Arroyo (27), Arizona State Sun Devils offensive coordinator. Relationship status: Love. He was fired after three seasons as head coach at UNLV, sat out a year and then returned to the game as OC for Kenny Dillingham this season in Tempe. The Sun Devils’ current 32.2 points per game scoring average is on pace to be their highest since 2016, and it’s 14.4 points more than last year’s average.

Arizona State has leaned on its running game, with 105 more rushing attempts than passes thus far. Battering ram Cam Skattebo has been a reliable bell cow back, with more than half of ASU’s rushing attempts on the season (133 out of 260). Quarterback Sam Leavitt has been the change-of-pace rushing threat, but he was banged up against Utah and might be running it less going forward.

The Sun Devils are also doing a nice job with ball security, having turned it over just five times in six games. They’ve lost just one fumble this season.

The Sooners offensive under Littrell has only 13 plays of 20 yards or more this season. / BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Seth Littrell (28), Oklahoma Sooners offensive coordinator. Relationship status: Hate. The Sooners’ offensive plight was touched upon in the First Quarter, but it bears a little more amplification here. In addition to the mismanaging of the quarterback position, Oklahoma seems to be distressingly low on playmakers. 

The Sooners are a distant last in the SEC in scrimmage plays of 10 yards or longer (69) and 20 yards or longer (13). In the latter category they rank 133rd nationally out of 134. The backs, receivers and linemen don’t seem to be helping out their callow quarterbacks much. Purdue transfer Deion Burks hadn’t been sensational through the first four games, but the offense still has missed him the last two after getting injured.

Drew Cronic (29), Navy Midshipmen offensive coordinator. Relationship status: Love. Add Cronic to the list of coaches moving up from the FCS ranks and making an impact. The former head coach at Mercer has helped undefeated Navy’s offense explode from 17.7 points in 2023 to 43.6 this year. 

Quarterback Blake Horvath would lead the nation in pass efficiency if he had enough attempts at 211.63—he’s 39 of 59 for 771 yards and seven touchdowns, with only one interception. He’s also Navy’s leading rusher with 565 yards and 10 TDs on the ground. Horvath had started only one game in college before this season.

Cronic also has tapped into sophomore Eli Heidenreich at the “snipe” position, using him as a dual-threat rusher and receiver. Heidenreich has accounted for 621 yards and five touchdowns from scrimmage, producing both 100 yards on the ground and 100 in receptions against Air Force.

Perhaps the biggest factor in Navy’s offensive proficiency: It hasn’t turned the ball over since the season opener and has lost zero fumbles in 234 rushing attempts.

Kirk Campbell (30), Michigan offensive coordinator. Relationship status: Hate. Campbell has an endowed coaching position—the Sanford Robertson offensive coordinator—but no passers at quarterback. That’s probably a roster management issue more than anything, but there also has been no apparent development of the QBs at his disposal.

Davis Warren was the initial starter and was benched after throwing six interceptions in the first three games. Alex Orji was next up—he stopped throwing the ball to the wrong team, but hasn’t thrown it very well to his own receivers. Next up is 25-year-old Jack Tuttle, known as “Uncle Jack,” whose career began at Indiana in 2018 and whose last start came in ’21.

Among power-conference teams, Michigan is last nationally in efficiency at 107.3 and last in passing yards at 115 per game. That’s no way to go through life in 2024.

Kade Bell (31), Pittsburgh Panthers offensive coordinator. Relationship status: Love. Like Navy, Pitt also went to the Southern Conference to juice up its offense, grabbing Bell from the staff of his father, Kerwin, at Western Carolina. Pitt has doubled last year’s scoring average, from 20.2 to 40.8, although that number is skewed a bit by scoring 73 on Youngstown State.

Pairing Bell with transfer quarterback Eli Holstein has been a revelation as the Panthers have raced to a 6–0 record. It also helped that Bell brought running back Desmond Reid with him from Western Carolina—he’s leading the ACC in yards per game from scrimmage at 167, racking up big plays as both a runner and receiver.

Geoff Collins (32), North Carolina Tar Heels defensive coordinator. Relationship status: Hate. Everything fell apart against James Madison on Sept. 21, and it has not yet been put back together again. The Heels have lost four straight, surrendering an average of 41.5 points in those games.

Collins’s unit surrendered quick-strike scoring drives in the last minute of both the second and fourth quarters in losing to Georgia Tech on Saturday. It gave up two long, fourth-quarter drives in the loss to Pitt. It gave up a 20–0 second-half lead to Duke. And it gave up just about everything James Madison could desire in starting this slide.

The larger question is Mack Brown’s status as head coach. But Collins is doing his boss no favors.