Who: Bobby Petrino, Texas A&M
Title: Offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach
Previous stop: Missouri State head coach (2020-22)
Why he's important: Nearly eight months after the hiring, we still don't have the definitive, so-clear-a-blind-man-can-see-it explanation on if Bobby Petrino will call the plays for Texas A&M. "Hopefully," Jimbo Fisher memorably said at SEC media days in July.
"It is a collective effort. I've been calling the plays out at practice. A lot of times the plays are called throughout the week, so as you game plan you put down your third-and-shorts, you know what you want to do run and pass-wise. Then you practice them and you go back and rank 'em. And a lot of times it's, 'We've got 3rd-and-1, the ball's on the right hash,' (snaps) call's already made," Petrino said earlier this month.
"You just have to be disciplined to do what you did in practice. When I've always self-scouted myself, I didn't do it based on what the defense was doing, I did it based on, did we call what we did in practice? Did we execute what we executed in practice? And if we didn't, why not?... I want to make sure that we spend time preparing our players and they understand this situations, and that they can rely that they're going going to get the play calls that they worked on all week."
Okay, so that's not exactly the "Bobby will call the plays, period," I'd have liked to hear upon his hiring on Jan. 6, but there's no evidence that Petrino won't call the plays. And Petrino made it clear that there is no, and will be no, rift between him and Jimbo, because that would imply he and Jimbo are equals on the org chart.
"That's not really how it works, okay? Coach is the boss," he said. "My job is to keep him happy and make sure everything works the way he wants it to work. I understand that probably more than anybody because of the number of years that I've been the head coach."
So, Petrino will call the plays with the understanding it's his job to call what the offensive staff, Fisher included, agreed upon over the course of the week. All that established, Texas A&M has no reason not to be really good offensively in 2023.
Conner Weigman has been named the starting quarterback, coming off a true freshman season in which he didn't throw a pick across 132 attempts.
His receivers, to my eyes, should be the best in the SEC. Evan Stewart might be the best individual receiver south of Columbus, Ohio; Moose Muhammad is a No. 2 who would be a No. 1 for many schools; Ainias Smith averaged nearly 20 yards per catch out of the slot; and 6-foot-6 Noah Thomas has been the biggest mover of fall camp.
At tight end, Donovan Green has already suffered a torn ACL, but Max Wright and Jake Johnson should be a capable stand-ins.
Devon Achane will be a tough replacement at running back, but Amari Daniels and Le'Veon Moss are 4-star players and Reuben Owens is a 5-star true freshman. "We talk about offensive philosophy and I always say 'FTS,' which is 'Feed the Studs,'" Petrino said.
Up front, the Aggies should have five upperclassmen, the smallest of which runs 6-foot-4, 315 pounds.
PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS: No. 15: Bryan Nardo, Oklahoma State; No. 14: Chad Bumphis, Mississippi State; No. 13: Buster Faulkner, Georgia Tech; No. 12 Chris Jackson, Texas; No. 11: Philip Montgomery, Auburn; No. 10: Josh Gattis: Maryland; No. 9: Lance Guidry, Miami; No. 8: Austin Armstrong, Florida; No. 7: Sean Lewis, Colorado; No. 6: Phil Longo, Wisconsin; No. 5: Tony White, Nebraska; No. 4: Pete Golding, Ole Miss; No. 3: Garrett Riley, Clemson
"A big part of offense is not the playbook and the things that you like to run. You call plays for players. We've got to get all our weapons in the right spots. The quarterbacks have to understand it's our job to get them the ball in the right spots. Very talented receiver group, some big tight ends that are physical and can run and catch, like to see what our running backs are going to do," he said earlier this month. "The offensive line, with their experience from last year, you could see in spring they were starting to get it and with these early practices they continued to improve."
Up front, the Aggies should have five upperclassmen, the smallest of which runs 6-foot-4, 315 pounds.
The biggest piece of intrigue within the A&M offensive brain trust is not necessarily what plays Petrino will call, but how many. Fisher's first Aggie team ran 980 plays across 13 games, tied for 18th most in college football.
But after averaging 75 plays a game in 2018, the Aggies dipped to 67.7 in 2019, remained there in 2020, then fell to 65 plays in 2021 and 63.1 plays per game in 2022.
Ranking 99th on third down didn't help the Aggies stay on the field, but then again A&M only faced 12.75 third downs per game in 2022, sixth fewest in college football. Simply running plays at a faster pace would help a team that has more raw talent than almost everyone they'll play to go out-talent people.
Texas A&M won't go fast simply to go fast, Petrino says, but they will have the ability to speed things up when it creates an advantage.
"I think we've got the weapons," Petrino said. "Now we've got to get the consistency."
That includes the consistency of bringing the same plays, from the same voice, from the practice field to Kyle Field.