AS A YOUNG head coach with a background in offensive playcalling, Arizona State‘s Kenny Dillingham likes to watch what those like him do on game days.
Last season, he closely tracked Ohio State coach Ryan Day, who has toggled between calling plays and relinquishing those duties, as he did in 2024 when veteran strategist Chip Kelly directed the Buckeyes’ offense. Dillingham had watched Day handle both head coach and offensive playcaller responsibilities earlier in his Ohio State tenure. Last year, he observed a different version of Day.
“I saw such a peace in Coach Day on game day, just from a fan watching games, how calm he was … how excited he would get for touchdowns and all of that when he didn’t call it,” Dillingham told ESPN. “I’m like, ‘I think he figured it out.’ He can be involved, have a say, but he’s over here talking to defense and offense. I’m like, ‘I love that.'”
Dillingham, 35, decided to take a similar approach at Arizona State.
He isn’t alone. Many coaches weigh the same playcalling decision, especially early in their careers. A majority of first-time FBS coaches enter those jobs after being primary playcallers as coordinators. For many, their playcalling prowess is the main reason they were selected to lead programs.
But the head coach job description is growing longer by the year, so they face a quandary: Call their own plays or give it up?
“When you’re calling a play, you think they’re all going to work,” Dillingham said. “When you don’t call them, you’re constantly judging.”
Some head coaches clutch their call sheets tight — refusing to let go, regardless of their other duties. Others willingly delegate, recognizing that their time is better spent overseeing all elements of their programs, but make the bigger-picture decisions within games, such as timeout usage or whether to attempt fourth-down conversions.
Week 1 of the 2025 season placed a spotlight on how head coaches handle playcalling. Steve Sarkisian, whose playcalling brilliance gave him a second chance as a head coach, pulled the strings for No. 1 Texas in Saturday’s 14-7 loss at No. 2 Ohio State, for which offensive coordinator Brian Hartline took on playcalling for the first time under Day. Sarkisian’s playcalls in Ohio State territory drew some criticism, as Texas twice stalled inside the Buckeyes’ 10-yard line and didn’t score until 3:28 remained. Hartline generally took a conservative approach with quarterback Julian Sayin, a first-time starter, but didn’t put the offense in dangerous spots with Ohio State’s defense playing so well.
After the game, Day praised Hartline for an “unselfish” approach, especially since the Buckeyes often had poor field position with a young quarterback.
“Moving forward, yeah, we know we have to be more explosive,” Day said Tuesday. “… We need to get the ball in space and do those types of things. But that’s all part of the journey with this group. The first goal was just win the game.”
Alabama‘s Kalen DeBoer and Florida State‘s Mike Norvell spent Saturday afternoon across from each other in Tallahassee, Florida, with each passing off playcalling to familiar names. After a year in the NFL, Ryan Grubb returned to DeBoer’s side, hoping to rekindle the magic that propelled Washington to the national title game in 2023. Norvell, climbing out of a 2-10 crater last season, hired Gus Malzahn, a longtime mentor and occasional Alabama tormentor, to call plays for the Seminoles’ offense, which looked dramatically different, rushing for 230 yards in a 31-17 upset of the Tide.
Teams change every year, and coaches must consider a set of factors — quarterback’s age and skill, offensive coordinator’s track record, other playcalling options on the staff, how the roster is constructed — and ultimately decide how involved they will be.
But this much is clear: They must make the right call with playcalling.
THE PLAYCALLING DECISION often comes down to trust: Does a head coach trust an assistant enough — and ultimately more than himself — to handle the responsibility? DeBoer doesn’t question his faith in Grubb, even after a tough game like Saturday’s opener, when the Tide mustered only 10 points and 266 yards after the opening scoring drive.
Grubb was DeBoer’s offensive coordinator at both Washington and Fresno State, and the two go all the way back to the University of Sioux Falls, the NAIA program where DeBoer played and later coached. Grubb joined DeBoer’s staff there to work with the offensive line in 2007.
Nick Sheridan, who served as Alabama’s offensive coordinator during DeBoer’s first season last fall, had been with DeBoer at both Washington and Indiana when DeBoer served as offensive coordinator. Sheridan is now Alabama’s co-offensive coordinator and coaches the quarterbacks, but Grubb calls plays.
“We’ve had so many conversations, you get into those moments like red zone or, are we playing for four downs? We can be on the same page,” DeBoer told ESPN. “They can set it up to where it’s like, ‘Man, this is where Kalen usually goes for it.’ And they know the times to be aggressive where there is not going to be a fourth down, going for it.”
DeBoer called offensive plays in every game he coached from 2000 — his first year as coordinator at Sioux Falls — until 2020, his debut as Fresno State’s coach. Now, he picks his spots when to give input — between offensive series, during a media timeout — but also understands that his advice must be on point, because he can influence his coordinator’s mindset.
“There’s more than one really good playcall, almost all the time,” DeBoer said. “It’s more about making sure that you stay out of the bad playcalls. What’s your system of making sure that you can check out of this? The key is: How do you stay on the field?”
Louisville coach Jeff Brohm came up in a family of accomplished quarterbacks, including his younger brother, Brian, who, like Jeff, starred at quarterback for the Cardinals. Jeff has had Brian as an offensive coordinator at all three of his head coaching stops: Western Kentucky, Purdue and Louisville, their alma mater.
“There’s nobody I would trust more than I trust him,” Jeff Brohm said.
But for now, big brother Brohm will continue to call the offensive plays.
“I would be cheating my team if I didn’t use what I thought I was pretty good at to help us win,” Jeff Brohm said. “It’s not like my brother couldn’t do it. … But I feel like it’s my responsibility to continue to do that. I still put that on my shoulders.”
During Dillingham’s first season as a head coach in 2023 and for part of last fall, he was more active in the playcalling process. Offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo handled the calls, but there were a few instances, especially early last fall, where the head coach couldn’t resist.
Against Texas Tech, Dillingham had the offense check into duo, a gap scheme run, but a linebacker shot through and dropped the ball carrier for a loss. Against Cincinnati, Dillingham called for an up-tempo play. It resulted in another tackle for loss.
“I was actually s—ty, so I stopped doing it as the year progressed,” he said.
Dillingham realized that the plays he selected in those moments weren’t necessarily misplaced. They fit the game situations. But he hadn’t spent the week crafting the plan, emphasizing a set of plays in practice, or spending every moment he could with quarterback Sam Leavitt and the offense. That’s Arroyo’s job.
“My best play, in my mind, is not the best play for the football team, because of how [Arroyo] prepared them,” Dillingham concluded. “That was what I learned [in 2023], through the first half of [2024]: Give advice but don’t give plays.”
Dillingham’s contributions became more generalized.
“Give it to Scat, throw it to JT,” he said, referring to All-American running back Cam Skattebo and star wide receiver Jordyn Tyson. “I want to blitz. I don’t want to play coverage anymore. It’s a more generalized philosophy of how I want our football team to play.”
Even then, Dillingham has to catch himself in critical moments, such as in the first quarter of the 2024 Big 12 championship game against Iowa State, when Arroyo called a play-action deep pass on fourth-and-1 from the ASU 34-yard line. Leavitt found Melquan Stovall for a 63-yard gain.
“I was nervous as s—,” Dillingham said. “I literally get on the headset when he called that and I’m like, ‘Y’all think we just hand it to Scat here? What do y’all think?’ Dead silence. Not one other coach. Everybody stayed quiet, everybody. I’m like, ‘All right, looks like we’re rolling with it.’ And huge play. … You’ve got to trust your people.”
WHEN JEFF LEBBY got his big break to lead Mississippi State — following offensive coordinator stints at Oklahoma, Ole Miss and UCF — he spent no time dithering about who would call plays for the Bulldogs.
“From a game-day standpoint, it’s how I can help us affect the game,” he told ESPN. “It was the reason I got the job. I don’t ever see the value outweighing the effect of being able to call plays. I feel strongly about that.”
A 2-10 debut season without a single SEC win hasn’t shifted Lebby’s position. During the offseason, he empowered offensive assistants Anthony Tucker and Jon Cooper, who have added the pass game coordinator and run game coordinator titles, respectively. Both worked with Lebby at other schools, and Tucker has been a coordinator.
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No. 3 Ohio State defeats No. 1 Texas 14-7 in season opener
No. 3 Ohio State Buckeyes defeat the No. 1 Texas Longhorns 14-7 in their season opener.
They both aid in organizational elements of the pass and run games, but although Lebby has spent time working on his time management, the playcalling is still his baby.
“My biggest thing is the football, the offensive part, the scheme, the scripting, the organization, that’s not going to take a back seat to anything,” Lebby said.
Playcalling fueled Lincoln Riley’s historic rise up the coaching ranks. He wouldn’t have become Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator at 31, or been named the successor to Hall of Fame Sooners coach Bob Stoops at 33, without being exceptional at crafting game plans and pulling the right strings.
The approach yielded historic results, as Oklahoma had the nation’s top offense in most major categories during Riley’s head coaching tenure from 2017 to 2021, which produced two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks and a runner-up. When Riley went to USC, he oversaw a top-three offense in his first season and mentored another Heisman winner in QB Caleb Williams. USC’s results the past two seasons haven’t been as strong, though, and part of Riley’s offseason program evaluation included playcalling.
“I’ve had some moments where I’ve thought about it, not during the [season], but in between,” he told ESPN. “I don’t know that I’ve ever gotten close to giving it up, but I’ve had that kind of inner discussion and discussion with some of my confidants about: Would that be the right thing to do?”
Riley concluded that the more important change would be to enhance USC’s personnel department with the hiring of new general manager Chad Bowden and others, and take more off his plate.
“Not that it’s been perfect, but the offensive track record that I’ve had a chance to be a part of is pretty solid, and I’ve just always felt like that’s an advantage that I can bring to our program,” Riley said. “I probably feel better about doing it right now than I have in the last couple of years. Obviously, I kept doing it, but I feel it’s much more manageable right now.”
Other coaches are at the other end of the spectrum. Luke Fickell held a variety of roles as an Ohio State assistant from 2002 to 2016, which included being defensive playcaller beginning in 2012 when Urban Meyer arrived as head coach.
But when Fickell got the chance to lead his own program, first at Cincinnati and now Wisconsin, he had no aspirations of calling plays.
“It can be arrogant to think that you have to be the guy to call it, whether it’s offensively or defensively,” Fickell said. “If you watch that much more and you prepare, then God bless you, but for me, it hasn’t been that way. There was a year, as we made some changes, if it didn’t work out, that I felt like, ‘OK, maybe I’ll be the guy to call it.’ But in my mind, in my heart, I’m thinking, ‘That’s arrogant to think you can do that and not suffer.'”
WHEN HE WAS an offensive coordinator at Auburn, SMU coach Rhett Lashlee saw how Malzahn, the team’s head coach and one of Lashlee’s mentors, wrestled with the playcalling decision. After a slow start to the 2016 season, Malzahn gave up playcalling to Lashlee, and then assigned it to OC Chip Lindsey in 2017. Malzahn then took back playcalling duties for 2018.
Lashlee joined Miami as offensive coordinator and observed how Manny Diaz, a first-time head coach, reassumed defensive playcalling duties in 2021 after giving them to coordinator Blake Baker. Lashlee decided that when he became a head coach, which he did at SMU following the 2021 season, he would start out calling offensive plays.
“I decided to because one, you got hired for a reason, and two, it’s better to come in as the head coach and take that responsibility and then maybe one day give it up, versus give it up early, and if it doesn’t go well, try to take it back,” Lashlee told ESPN.
Lashlee still evaluates the playcalling role after each season and doesn’t call plays during spring practice, delegating to coordinator Casey Woods and the offensive staff. If SMU would benefit from a different voice, Lashlee would be comfortable stepping aside, but the team has 23 wins and a College Football Playoff appearance in the past two years.
Double duty creates challenges, but it also increases efficiency.
“I don’t have to be like, ‘Hey, do you want to go for it, Coach?'” Lashlee said. “I’m the one deciding if we’re going for it and calling the play.”
Clark Lea gave up defensive playcalling duties when he became Vanderbilt‘s coach, but after the defense slipped in 2023 — to 126th in points allowed and 128th in yards allowed — Lea took them back. He was best equipped to reset the system.
As the 2024 season progressed and Vanderbilt stabilized, Lea didn’t feel the time he could devote to playcalling was sufficient, especially compared with the hours he had logged as a defensive coordinator. He shared his concerns with Steve Gregory, the team’s secondary coach and associate DC, at the walk-through before an Oct. 26 game against Texas. In March, Lea promoted Gregory to defensive coordinator.
“That’s how we spent the last four games of the season, and that’s where we came out in January,” Lea said. “I’m with those guys every day, like every night in fall camp, I’m in front of the defense, and I’m presenting or teaching something. But the actual calling of the play will be Steve’s responsibility, and up until the point that the words come out of his mouth, I’ll have a chance to have an impact on it.”
Norvell has done it both ways, handling playcalls early in his tenures at both Memphis and Florida State. He handed off calls to Dillingham in 2021, then made the calls himself from 2022 to 2024.
A 2-10 season last fall triggered many changes around the program, including the decision to bring in Malzahn from UCF, who worked with Norvell at Tulsa under coach Todd Graham.
“I feel like I got one of the best playcallers in the country, obviously somebody we’re very comfortable with,” Norvell told ESPN. “We always stayed in touch over the years, and it was something that I was aware of throughout the time, whenever he did and decided to not call plays. I know he’s excited to have the opportunity to really just be able to focus on the offensive side of the ball, and to be able to do what I know he loves.”
Empowered by Norvell, Malzahn was in top form against Alabama. Florida State led by seven early in the fourth quarter and faced fourth-and-1 from its own 34-yard line. The Seminoles went for it, converted on a Roydell Williams run and went downfield to score a put-away touchdown.
“You obviously always talk through any of those situations that are up — that and the fourth down at the end as well,” Norvell said. “It’s just like, ‘Let’s go put our stamp on it.'”
The degree of difficulty makes playcalling assignments among the more important decisions head coaches make. When they work, like they did last week at Florida State, the impact can be seismic.
“I’m not the OC; I’m the head coach,” Lashlee said. “So every year, I ask myself: Do I think me calling plays gives us the best chance to win?’ If I do, I’m going to do it, and if I don’t, then that’s when I’ll give it up.”
