Joe Arpasi
April 8, 2026
When we evaluate each team there are a number of considerations that go into effect on which coach’s history will be used for our research purposes. A coach’s history will impact if that team qualifies as running any high value CFF coaching system, how projections will take shape, and how players are ranked. There is no one formula on how we perform this, but sometimes there are cases where we dont have full faith in the coach’s data that we selected. In this article we will review the coaches that you should caution yourself on how accurately to apply their coaching history data.
Honorable Mentions
Buffalo: Pete Lembo
Dave Patenaude served as the offensive coordinator the last two seasons at Buffalo. These seasons are logged under Lembo as well but he was not the play caller, Patenaude was. Tony Tokarz takes over as the offensive coordinator this season. Last year he was the QB coach at Florida State and has never call plays in his coaching career. I can’t really say what shape the offense will take which is why using Patenaude’s stats from Buffalo was the only thing I could use this season.
Connecticut: Jason Candle
Candle was the head coach at Toledo from 2016-2025. From 2012-2015 he was Toledo’s offensive coordinator but all the season’s in our coaching history tool were with different coaches calling the plays. Nunzio Campanile is UConn’s new offensive coordinator for 2026. He comes over from Syracuse where he was the QB’s coach. He does have coordinator experience from Rutgers in one season. Its too hard to tell if this year’s offense will resemble what we saw from Candle’s time at Toledo or Campanile’s time at Syracuse.
East Carolina: Jordan Davis
Jordan Davis spent the last three seasons as the offensive coordinator at North Texas. Head Coach Eric Morris was the architect of that offense and Davis spent his time learning from Morris’ direction. This will be Davis’ first season as a play caller which means his adjustments won’t be as good or quick. Just lower your expectations for the type of output the Pirates can do in year one under Davis.
Iowa State: Jimmy Rogers
The coaching history here for the Cyclones is almost unusable. Rogers was the head coach of Washington State last season but when you dive into his coaching history you’ll see that he has a defensive background. Tyler Roehl was hired as the offensive coordinator after serving as the TE’s coach last season for the Detroit Lions. He has over a decade of college coaching history but was never a coordinator. So with no usable data from Roehl, we’re forced to use offensive data from last season’s Washington State offense of which Rogers had no hand in.
Massachusetts: Max Warner
Warner spent last season as an offensive analyst at Toledo, and he spent 2022-2024 as the co-offensive coordinator at Bowling Green. The only play calling experience is from 2011-2014 at Hillsborough High School (FL). Head coach Joe Harasymiak has a defensive background which makes his coaching history useless here. So the history we have for Wanrer comes from a different coach calling plays, and with two seasons where Harold Fannin was dominating at the TE position.
Michigan State: Nick Sheridan
Sheridan has benefitted from learning under Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer. Sheridan was the offensive coordinator in 2024 but DeBoer was still in control of the offense. Sheridan was relegated to co-offensive coordinator last season when Ryan Grubb returned. While the 2024 season is the most reliable data from his coaching history, the offense took a very different shape that season as it was warped to fit QB Jalen Milroe’s skill set. We’re likely to see an offense this season that is more like 2025 Bama, but not as efficient.
Nevada: Brett Bartolone
Nevada’s head coach Jeff Choate is a defensive coach and provides no usable data. Bartolone was the offensive coordintaor at Jackson State in 2022 but I don’t track all FCS teams each year, so that data is missing from his history. Its good to know that he has play calling experience though. He stuck with Deon Sanders and last season was made co-offensive coordinator at Colorado but that offense was shaped by Pat Shurmur. I have no good feel for what shape the offense will take other than its likely to be a spread offense.
Oregon State: JaMarcus Shephard
Since 2011 Shephard has been coaching under some great offensive minds at Western Kentucky, Washington State, Purdue, Washington, and Alabama. Three times he’s been named passing game coordinator or co-offensive coordinator but he’s never called plays before. He takes over as the new head coach at Oregon State and his new offensive coordinator is Mitch Dahlen who was also a co-offensive coordinator at Alabama last season. I think Shephard takes control of the play calling finally but the stats in his coaching history have way too much production for what we can expect from year one with the Beavers.
Tulane: Will Hall
Hall spent last season season as the passing game coordinator at Tulane before being named the team’s new head coach. Even though he wasn’t calling the plays last season he does have offensive coordinator experience five other schools. This coordinator experience is much more deep that Tulane’s new OC Russ Callaway who had his first coordinator job last season at Florida. I do think Hall’s history from his two stops at Tulane will be reliable to use. But his four season as head coach at Southern Miss have discrepencies in offensive production compared to his two stints at Tulane, making the Southern Miss stats misleading.
UAB: Alex Mortensen
All three seasons in Mortensen’s coaching history are deceiving. He was the offensive coordinator at UAB during those seasons but just had the OC title. Previous head coach Trent Dilfer was the one running that offense and it did so well that it got him fired. My gut tells me that Mortensen won’t be running Dilfer’s offensive system but we have no other data to pull on Mortensen. He did not hire an official offensive coordinaor, just a running and passing game coordinaor which means Mortensen will be calling the plays. This makes the stats in his coaching history pretty unreliable for what we can expect this season.
Wyoming: Jay Sawvel
Sawvel is Wyoming’s head coach who has a defensive coaching background. I do not like tracking stats from these type of head coaches because you know that they had no input in the direction the offense took. But I was forced to use him this season. Christian Taylor was hired as the new OC this season. He spent last season as an analyst for the Buffalo Bills. Prior to the NFL he has offensive coordinator experience at two FCS schools and one division III school. That means there’s nothing in my database that we can use to track Taylor coaching history, or to know if it will even resemble what we was from Wyoming last season.
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