Part of the magic of college football is the chaos of the "coaching carousel", a spinning wheel of coaches hired and fired every offseason that sends ripples throughout the college landscape.
Three of the four playoff teams from 2024 have new coaches. Over 500 coaches changed jobs this offseason, with 31 new head coaches being hired in this year's cycle.
Who are some of the newly hired offensive coordinators to monitor this season for bigger jobs the next time the coaching carousel comes calling?
For this list, I'm focusing mainly on G5 coaches, but there are some Power 5 coaches sprinkled in throughout who I think could go on to bigger P5 jobs later on. Many of the game's best coaches are found at the lower level.
Head Coaches
Defensive Coordinators
Kade Bell, Pitt
Pat Narduzzi pulled off arguably the most astounding hire of the offseason, hiring a young and exciting offensive coordinator to seemingly score points, something that Pitt has largely been allergic to under Narduzzi.
Kade Bell enters as the Panthers' new offensive coordinator, bringing a high-octane, up-tempo to the Panthers that have been anything but that the last two seasons.
At Western Carolina, Bell's offense finished first in the FCS in total offense (beating 2nd place Incarnate Word by a full 20 yards), fifth in passing, fourth in passing efficiency and scoring, and 22nd in rushing this past season.
The closest the Panthers came to any of those marks in 2023 was the 75th-ranked passing offense last year.
The Panthers are starting former Alabama transfer QB Eli Holstein and return two of its top three backs from last year while adding explosive WCU back Desmond Reid. Talented pass catchers WR Konata Mumpfield and TE Gavin Bartholomew return as well, giving Pitt a solid floor of weapons to build on.
It's a significant leap to go from the FCS to the FBS, especially leaping into the ACC and a schedule that includes Clemson, SMU, and Louisville, but I can give Pitt credit for pulling such a radical swing for the fences.
Drew Cronic, Navy
Cronic isn't exactly a "new" coach at 50 years old and a well-built resume as a head coach. However, this is his first year coaching in the FBS, so let me cheat a bit to put him here.
I am an absolute sicko for the triple-option. It is America personified, an offense built on steady perseverance and absolutely irritating everyone who has to go up against it. With the new blocking rules eliminating cut blocks, however, it's efficiency has decreased.
To find a new approach while retaining their identity, Navy head coach Brian Newberry brought in Cronic to serve as his offensive coordinator. Cronic has cut his teeth on rebuilding teams across NAIA, D2, and the FCS. At Reinhardt, he took a six-win Eagles team in 2014 and proceeded to turn them into a 9-2 team in 2015 and 13-1 team in 2016. He took Reinhardt to its first NAIA playoff berth in his first year and then the semifinals a year later.
Cronic served as Furman's OC in 2017, where they won eight games and made it to the second round of the FCS playoffs. In 2018, he was back as head coach, this time leading the Lenoir-Rhyne Bears. The Bears had won just 11 games in the three years prior. His first year there? They won 12 games and went all the way to the D2 semifinals in one year.
The Bears would repeat their semifinal run in 2019, this time winning 13 games. He was hired to turn a struggling Mercer Bears team around in 2020 and it didn't take him long to take them to their first playoff berth in program history. Throughout his eight years as a head coach, Cronic has just one losing season as a head coach and still won five games that year.
Now leading the Midshipmen's offense, Cronic's offense is set to be one of the most fun in the country. Running a Wing-T offense is one thing, but running it the way Cronic does is an entirely different matter. Built on causing as many headaches as it possibly can with pre-snap motion, shifts, and formation flexibility, it's one of the most fascinating schemes I have studied in my ten years of scouting.
At his introductory press conference, Cronic described his offense as a "a hybrid Wing-T offense" that will mix in the triple option, spread option, and a few RPOs here and there depending on what the defense gives them.
Yeah, sign me up.
Collin Klein, Texas A&M
A name many are likely familiar with, Collin Klein was a former Heisman finalist quarterback while at Kansas State from 2008-12. Klein didn't find NFL success as a player but found himself drawn to returning to Kansas State. He quickly found a role as a quality control coach and assistant recruiting director in 2014 and became a graduate assistant in 2015.
He secured his first full-time coaching job as the quarterbacks coach for Northern Iowa in 2016 but quickly returned to Kansas State as their quarterbacks coach in 2017. Klein worked his way up to becoming the offensive coordinator in 2022 under new head coach Chris Kleiman.
As offensive coordinator from 2022-23, Klein called plays for one of the nation's most physical and efficient offenses. Built on a power-run game, the Wildcats finished 2023 with the 11th-ranked rushing offense, 10th-ranked scoring offense, 11th-ranked third-down offense, 10th-ranked scoring offense, and boasted the best red-zone touchdown percentage in the country.
Now Klein gets to work with a place with significantly greater resources than he had at Kansas State. The offense might be a bit mish-mashed, particularly up front, but Klein has developed multiple quarterbacks at Kansas State in Dolphins backup Skylar Thompson, UFL-MVP Adrian Martinez, Ohio State starter Will Howard, and Avery Johnson in 2023. He now gets to work with Connor Weigman, who is the most talented of that group of quarterbacks and returns plenty of skill talent.
This group could be plenty fun, which is more than we've been able to say of A&M in recent years.
Andy Kotelnicki, Penn State
I'm not being overly original here by picking Kotelnicki, who might be the hottest-rising offensive coordinator in the country, but I can't help it. I've been a fan of Kotelnicki for three years now , and I'm going to gloat that I called it years ago.
Kotelnicki has been Lance Leipold's right-hand man for years, following him as offensive coordinator at four separate schools over the last decade.
The two have had tremendous success together. They won back-to-back national championships at Wisconsin-Whitewater before heading to Buffalo in 2015. It took the two a couple of years to get the Bulls moving, but finished their last three seasons with winning records. Their ability to win everywhere drew the attention of a floundering Kansas football program fresh off of back-to-back-to-back (etc, etc) head coaching hires.
Leipold and Kotelnicki immediately breathed life into the program. After going 2-10 in 2021, the Jayhawks rose to a 6-7 team in 2022 and a 9-4 team in 2023.
Their offense throws a lot of eye candy out at teams, with plenty of motion, RPOs, and option calls to create a downright diabolical attack that befuddled numerous coaches. Kansas has taken down Texas, Oklahoma State, and Oklahoma the last three seasons by routinely confusing their defenses.
Kansas raced to an eighth-ranked rushing offense while finishing 16th in EPA in 2023. They did this while missing their stud dual-threat quarterback Jalon Daniels.
The thing that stands out about Kotelnicki's tenure as a coordinator is his willingness to adapt to his personnel. The Bulls get an M1-Abrams tank at quarterback in Tyree Jackson? No problemo, QB Power all the way. They get two bruising backs in Jaret Patterson and Kevin Marks? They each get over 100 carries. Jalon Daniels is an elite dual-threat? Let's dice up defenses with a million RPOs. He gets hurt? Enter Devin Neal and Daniel Hishaw Jr to combine for over 300 touches.
He'll have to if he wants to get Penn State to a similar level of offensive excitement.
This Nittany Lions roster is talented, but question marks abound throughout the offense.
Related: Penn State signal caller Drew Allar included as a player who could have a bounce-back season in 2024
Quarterback Drew Allar has tremendous arm talent, but has become gun-shy in pushing the ball. While Penn State's scheme wasn't exactly creative in getting anyone open, he would pass up far too many opportunities to make a checkdown. Less than 30% of his passes traveled further than ten yards.
Penn State's wide receiver corps returns little proven talent, and their offensive line lost its three best players in Olu Fashanu, Hunter Nourzad, and Caedan Wallace, who were all drafted.
However, Kotelnicki has shown an ability to adapt, and he should take advantage of Penn State's talented RB duo of Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen.
It feels pretty likely that Penn State will end up firmly in the playoff conversation by the end of the season. Their ceiling at that point will depend on Kotelnicki's ability to extract what he can from this offense. If Penn State becomes at least interesting on offense, I'd expect Kotelnicki to field plenty of head coach offers this cycle.
Zach Lujan, Northwestern
As if an offensive coordinator from the Big Ten West making this list wasn't crazy enough, it's an offensive coordinator for Northwestern . The Wildcats aren't exactly known for their offensive prowess, but that's something new head coach David Braun wants to change.
Braun pulled off, in my opinion, the best offensive coordinator hire of the cycle by nabbing Zach Lujan to call plays for his Wildcats.
Lujan arrived at Northwestern off of an impressive resume as the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks at South Dakota State. With the Jackrabbits, he won twenty-nine consecutive games and back-to-back national championships
The Jackrabbits' offense was the main catalyst for their success, topping the FCS in several marks in 2022 and 2023.
Before he became the offensive coordinator, Lujan was a former SDSU quarterback who entered the coaching ranks in 2017. He became the Jackrabbits' running backs coach in 2018, where he helped develop MVFC Freshman of the Year and future NFL running back Pierre Strong.
In 2019, he moved over to coaching quarterbacks. He helped turn Mark Gronoski into the MVFC Freshman of the Year, Newcomer of the Year, and Offensive Player of the Year in 2020.
Lujan also developed quarterback Chris Oladokun while at South Dakota State. Oladokun led the Jackrabbits to an 11-4 season in 2021 and was drafted in the seventh round of the 2022 NFL Draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers.
After that 2021 season, Lujan assumed offensive coordinator duties.
In his first season as a play-caller, SDSU averaged 34.2 points per game and put up close to 400 yards of offense per game. In their four playoff games in 2022, the Jackrabbits molly-whopped every team they played, putting up 40+ points in three of those games while tallying over 200 yards rushing in all four.
Their 2023 tally was even more impressive. The Jackrabbits had a more balanced attack, led by dual-threat Mark Gronowski. They still finished fifth in rushing but also added a potent passing game courtesy of Gronowski, who finished second in passing touchdowns and seventh in passing yards.
Gronowski won the Walter Payton Award for the FCS's top offensive player last season and is firmly on NFL Draft radars.
Now Lujan turns his attention to the big leagues, leading a Power 5 offense in one of the nation's two mega-conferences. His multiple, power-option offense has proven to be capable of generating explosive plays routinely. When was the last time we were able to say that about Northwestern?
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