Who Makes Sense As the Gophers' Next Offensive Playcaller?

Co-offensive coordinator Mike Sanford Jr. will not return to Minnesota for the 2022 season. The struggles of the Gophers' offense this season, as well as the decline of quarterback Tanner Morgan, have been well-documented, and I've covered them here. This was a necessary move.

Though it'll probably take some time before we know the answer to this question, it's reasonable to ask as the search starts: Who might succeed Sanford as playcaller?

The names that I list below — those of two internal candidates and five external ones — are not the product of any reporting. They are instead coaches I think the Gophers could or should consider to fill this opening on their staff because of their talent and potential fit, and who could conceivably view calling plays at Minnesota as an upgrade to their current positions. Maybe they don't fit for one reason or another in a way we can't see from the outside, whether that be personality or how their career goals align with joining the program at this point. But with what perspective we have, the candidates below have some logic behind their inclusion on this list.

Internal Candidates

Matt Simon — Co-OC, WR Coach

Simon is perhaps the most obvious candidate on several levels, among them his long-running ties to P.J. Fleck. When Simon played receiver at Northern Illinois — Fleck's alma mater — Fleck was his position coach. After graduating, he started his coaching career as a quality control coach on NIU's staff with Fleck. Two years after Fleck followed Greg Schiano from Rutgers to the Buccaneers, Simon had his job as the Scarlet Knights' receivers coach. When Fleck became head coach at Western Michigan, Simon joined as receivers coach, a position he's held on Fleck's staffs since then.

The Farmington native added the co-coordinator title in 2020, possibly so the Gophers could avoid losing him to bigger schools. In addition to WMU's Corey Davis, Simon has coached arguably the two best receivers in Minnesota history in Tyler Johnson and Rashod Bateman. He's developed Chris Autman-Bell into a potential NFL prospect and recruited pedigreed wideouts like Daniel Jackson and Dylan Wright. Receiver has been one of the Fleck era's greatest strengths, and Simon deserves ample credit for that.

After Kirk Ciarrocca left for Penn State at the end of the 2019 regular season, Simon called plays in Minnesota's bowl game against Auburn. It was hard to tell how much of the day's offensive success was Simon's doing, since much of the gameplan had likely been crafted before Ciarrocca's departure, but it left enough of an impression that there has been no shortage of fans wanting Simon to take over playcalling duties. Elevating him to playcaller would be a logical step: someone established in the program, who appears good at his job, getting a promotion he seems likely to receive elsewhere eventually.

If Simon got the job, Fleck would need to find a quarterbacks coach to fill Sanford's duties, which might mean promoting one of quality control assistants Nate Dodson or Brian Sheppard. (Of note: Sheppard has been offensive coordinator at prior stops, most recently with VMI.) And it is worth remembering that Simon, as co-coordinator, was heavily involved in gameplanning with Sanford, so it isn't as if he is without fault for the offense's recent dysfunction. But on its face, there may not be a more natural transition than promoting Simon.

Brian Callahan — Run Game Coordinator, OL Coach

Callahan has coached the Gophers' offensive linemen since 2018, taking over after Ed Warriner's one-year stint in the same role, but he's been with Fleck for much longer. He arrived to Minneapolis with the rest of the former Western Michigan staff, briefly coaching tight ends after five years as offensive line coach in Kalamazoo. He gained the run game coordinator title when he moved back to his more familiar spot; he also held it for a few years at Akron. Callahan's only season as offensive coordinator, meanwhile, was with Northern Michigan in 1999. So he probably has long odds to call plays.

However, if you were to identify any coach already on staff other than Simon who may have a chance at succeeding Sanford, Callahan might be it.

External Candidates

What Minnesota's offense might need more than just a better playcaller than Sanford is a new voice. Fleck is as much an issue with the direction of the offense as Sanford or Ciarrocca ever were. The Gophers need to truly shift their philosophy into a more open style, or at the very least get some new ideas in the room. Below are the names of a handful of coaches who might provide that.

Do all of these ideas make perfect geographical sense? Not really, but at a school like Minnesota — a middling Power Five program in a part of the country that doesn't produce a lot of FBS players — staying within one's region isn't as important. Finding a playcaller who hasn't recruited much in Minnesota and in bordering states is not a serious issue when so many of the Gophers' best players since Glen Mason was coach have come from Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and Texas. Therefore, for our purposes, we don't have to stick to candidates in the Midwest and can look for coaches who have just been good at their jobs and have run interesting, productive offenses.

Kirk Ciarrocca — West Virginia — Analyst

I'll be frank: I believe in and endorse this idea much less than I feel obligated to mention it. Ciarrocca, of course, was Fleck's offensive coordinator for years, leaving after the 2019 season for Penn State. After a disappointing 2020 season, James Franklin fired him, and Ciarrocca landed at West Virginia in a non-coaching role, having reportedly almost left for Morgantown after 2018.

Will Ciarrocca come back? I would be surprised. Reunions aren't common in this sport, and he might be content to stay close to his native Pennsylvania, working under a friend in Neal Brown. If he came back to Minneapolis, he might decide it was a mistake and go east again.

Additionally, I'm not sure it would be the best move. Some of the problems of Sanford's tenure were just worse versions of the problems of Ciarrocca's tenure. The offense was simple and conservative to the point of predictability. The Gophers lacked creativity at the goal line. Ciarrocca deserves credit for the team's execution in 2019. It's just that flaws in the system have at times been bailed out by said execution. Though Ciarrocca could step in and immediately help Morgan rediscover his footing, that short-term (and not guaranteed) boost might not be worth avoiding a long-needed, large-scale adjustment to Minnesota's offense.

Jason Eck — South Dakota State — OC, OL Coach

Even having given the above disclaimer on geography: Eck makes a lot of sense on that level. A graduate of Wisconsin, Eck has coached at a variety of lower-level schools in the Midwest: Winona State, Western Illinois, Minnesota State, and now South Dakota State.

In three years as playcaller, Eck has managed one of the top FCS offenses through a balanced approach that in some ways resembles what the Gophers do. The Jackrabbits' spread offense runs a good amount of split zone and inside zone behind two-tight end sets, leaning hard on explosive tailback Pierre Strong while complementing the run game with heavy use of play-action.

It's not a one-to-one comparison, though. The Jacks throw more often, use fewer run-pass options, and include more gap-based run concepts like power. Though they can take their time, they do not prioritize shortening games the way to Gophers do. And going deep is not as much of an emphasis for SDSU's passing game as it been for Minnesota. (The prevalence of deep passing is lower in the FCS than in the FBS, though, likely because of the comparably lower level of quarterback play.)

The biggest issue with hiring Eck would be that he is an offensive line coach through and through. He was a center for the Badgers, and the only position group he's coached other than linemen is tight ends. Someone has to coach the quarterbacks, and even in college, that doesn't mean just familiarizing them with the scheme. There's a reason Eck is the only offensive line coach on my list of outside options. Perhaps tight ends coach Clay Patterson could move over to quarterbacks, having coached that position for a few years at a Texas community college, with Eck swinging back to tight ends, but that feels like a stretch. If anything eliminates Eck entirely as a candidate, it's that his specialty is covered. But his success in Brookings is certainly intriguing.

Brian Johnson — Philadelphia Eagles — QB Coach

Johnson, a former standout as quarterback at Utah, may not want to drop back down to college. But the prospect of calling plays may be enticing. Johnson has had that responsibility at both Utah and Houston in the past. And while Dan Mullen has long called his own plays, Johnson gained renown with the Gators as a position coach. He also has experience recruiting the South, where the Gophers like to find prospects. If Johnson would consider the job, Minnesota would be smart to interview him.

Brennan Marion — Pitt — WR Coach

In the interest of full disclosure: Johnson and Marion probably count more as wishful thinking than something this U of M alumnus really believes will happen. Would either be absurd? No; if I thought that, neither would be in this space. But I won't count on either coming.

However: If you want major change, Marion could provide it. The architect of the "go-go" offense is one of the most creative minds in the sport, using option concepts out of funky formations during his time as playcaller at Howard. Marion would give Minnesota an offense unlike any in the conference while keeping the ground game as the team's focus.

While converting totally to the go-go would take adjusting to the higher tempo and need for more mobility at quarterback than Morgan offers, there would be no need to scrap every part of what has been working for Minnesota. Marion's system at Howard was constructed in part to make up for limited receiving talent; with better receivers, he could create a more balanced, explosive attack. And after signing his newest contract extension, with a potentially large group of upperclassmen departing, Fleck has time to see a new offense take shape.

Someone is going to make Marion their offensive coordinator eventually. Why not Minnesota?

Blake Rolan — Southern Illinois — OC, QB Coach

Salukis head coach Nick Hill is bound to move to an FBS job at some point, perhaps as early as this offseason. But a program seeking to improve offensively could try grabbing its own part of an effective Salukis attack. Rolan's offense, ranked 12th in FCS SP+ going into the second round of the playoffs, uses a nearly 50-50 run-pass split and moves at a fairly quick pace.

Though like Missouri Valley rivals South Dakota State, SIU relies significantly on play-action, that has not as often been paired with deep throws. Pro Football Focus has quarterback Nic Baker's average depth of target off of play-action as just under 10 yards. Overall, the Salukis make liberal use of the short game, throwing nearly a fifth of passes behind the line of scrimmage and letting their skill players go to work with the ball in their hands. It's an approach that has worked for them so far. Rolan might be worth the Gophers' consideration.

Overall Thoughts

Though I worked to find ascending and qualified coaches from other teams that could reasonably become Minnesota's new offensive coordinator, Simon feels like the favorite. Giving him playcalling duties would make total sense. Not only has he been around the program and the system long enough for it to be a natural move; promoting from within and finding a quarterbacks coach (whether internally or externally) should leave more money available to retain some of the Gophers' assistants as this increasingly wild coaching cycle continues.

But it bears repeating that Minnesota has needed to more than just change the identity of the person calling plays. The offense has suffered the same problems for long enough, under two different playcallers, for it to become apparent that Fleck himself must adjust. It is time to use the talented receivers he has recruited, to move with greater urgency, to attack lesser opponents rather than trying to overpower defenses that know what's coming, and to generally be more creative — maybe even weirder. Whether that means bringing in an outside voice or sticking to familiar faces, evolution has to come.