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Offensive Coordinator Spavital Spreading His Wings
March 27, 2017 12:41 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Dana Holgorsen moved quickly when it became clear that he had an opportunity to bring Jake Spavital back to West Virginia University earlier this winter.
Spavital spent the last two seasons working at California as Sonny Dykes’ offensive coordinator. That followed a three-year stop at Texas A&M where he tutored Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel. Prior to that, Spavital worked two seasons with Holgorsen at WVU and one as Holgorsen’s graduate assistant at Oklahoma State in 2010.
Spavital, considered one of the game’s bright, young offensive minds, was looking for a place where he could spread his wings and take on more responsibility as a play caller. Holgorsen, who recently signed a five-year contract extension with the Mountaineers, has been calling the plays and managing the offense while also overseeing a perennial top 25 football program for the last six years.
What he had on his plate were basically two full-time jobs as head coach and the program’s primary play caller. Sometimes those responsibilities converged.
For instance, what happens during a game when the kickoff team gives up a long return for a touchdown while Holgorsen is organizing his offensive staff and considering what plays to call when the Mountaineers get the ball?
Instead of going over to address the special teams miscue, he had to worry about what plays he was going to call when the offense took the field. He might have made a note of it to address that specific issue at halftime, or after the game, but he couldn’t dig too deeply into it when it occurred because he had play-calling responsibilities to worry about.
Or, what happens when a problem pops up during the week while he’s in the offensive meeting room studying tape or going over things with the quarterbacks before practice? He’s the one who has to step out and take care of the issue as the program’s top man.
Holgorsen brought in Tony Gibson to run the defense, and while Gibson prefers a specific scheme, it’s still Dana Holgorsen’s defense.
And it’s the same deal with Spavital.
Holgorsen may be relinquishing play-calling responsibilities and allowing Spavital to organize the offensive practice schedules, but it’s still Dana Holgorsen’s offense.
As for special teams, Holgorsen indicated previously that he will become more heavily involved in the return game, which, in the case of punt return, has been less than stellar the last couple of years.
Therefore, it’s a win having Gibson in charge of the Mountaineer defense for the fourth consecutive year, it’s a win having Spavital back in the program to call the plays and it’s certainly a win having Holgorsen overseeing it all to make sure it’s done the way he wants it done.
Still, Spavital wanted to be certain that Holgorsen was bringing him back to do just that because Dana is such a great play caller and has been doing it for a long time.
“I know (Mike Gundy) had the itch (to continue calling plays at Oklahoma State), but I think he realized after that year with Dana that was the best thing to do,” Spavital said last month. “He’s continued on with that. Dana has always been a guy I have looked up to, a guy that taught me my offensive philosophy to come back and help him out and it was a no-brainer for me at the end of the day. I just had to make sure that it was me calling the plays.”
To get Jake on board, Holgorsen did what all smart coaches do - he went straight to his wife, Mehgan, a former WVU gymnast.
“We had some serious talks about it and he got my wife involved, which was two versus one,” Spavital said. “I think he did a great job calling plays last year, but it’s just a lot being the head coach and calling the plays and having all of the offensive responsibility. That can wear you out a little bit and I think he was exhausted a little bit.”
Holgorsen indicated as much last month while discussing his latest group of signees. He made reference to the series of family pictures he has on his wall and how much he feels he has aged during the six seasons he has been at WVU.
Now, with Spavital running the offense and Gibson running the defense, Holgorsen can spend more time managing the big-picture things that need addressed. However, that doesn’t mean he is divorcing himself from the day-to-day minutiae.
“It’s his room and he will call the plays and do a great job with that,” Holgorsen said. “Now you know where I am going to be. I am going to be lurking, but I am not going to be questioning. He knows what I want. We will sit in the room and we will come up with a pretty good idea of where we want this thing to go.”
“Like I told Dana, I want his insight because he’s such a great play caller,” Spavital added. “It alleviates some of the pressure and some of the stress where I can control the practice schedules and I can deal with certain situations with the kids and off-the-field things that don’t need to get to the head coach and I can just handle it as an offensive coordinator and he can deal with the bigger problems.”
As for what Spavital has to work with this year, he said he’s very happy with the cupboard Holgorsen has stocked for him this spring.
“Oh yeah, I would like to have a good balance of tight ends and fullbacks and receivers and I think we’ve got that here right now,” he said. “When I was at Cal, I had 18 receivers and one fullback and I would put in 11-personnel because I believe you have to establish the run, but after six plays the kid needed a break and I had to sub in 10-personnel and go from there.
“It was different at Texas A&M. I had tight ends and fullbacks and I was in more 11-personnel and more 21-personnel, but I think you’ve got to find your best 11 and your best sets and get really good at them and live and die off of them,” Spavital said. “With what Dana recruited here at West Virginia, I believe he’s got a good mix of everything.”
Spavital doesn’t have a bunch of quarterbacks to work with this spring, but the three in the program right now are all very talented.
Last year, he said he repped six at Cal during spring ball because wasn’t sure what they could do.
“That’s not really efficient if you think about it,” Spavital said. “Here I’ve got three kids I can work with and figure out what they’re good at and what they’re not good at and work out their deficiencies and expand on what they’re good at.”
In Florida transfer Will Grier, Spavital admits there is plenty about which to be excited. He was actually familiar with Grier from his years working in the SEC at Texas A&M.
“Being a coach’s kid is huge,” Spavital said. “He’s got a great understanding of the game. I’ve watched a lot of his crossover tape when I was at Texas A&M and I used a lot of his tape because they ran a lot of similar sets we did so you got to see him hit big plays against Ole Miss and Tennessee that were fun to watch. Just going through that tape, you got a sense that the kid can play at a pretty high level.”
Spavital said he is also impressed with youngsters Chris Chugunov and Cody Saunders.
“I like them,” he said. “They’re two different guys and Chugs can spin it. He’s more of a pocket guy. He’s not a guy you are going to do a lot of zone reads and quarterback run game, but he can get the ball in space. He’s very cerebral. He pays attention in our meetings and he asks very good questions.
“And Cody is talented,” Spavital continued. “He looks the part. You can tell he’s a lot more athletic and you can do a lot more with the run game. He can make the throws as well.”
With a week and half of spring work now in the books, Spavital said his No. 1 objective by the end of spring is to develop an offensive mentality.
“Who is going to be the core group of guys that we’re going to rely on for the fall?” he said. “You’ve got freshmen coming in for fall camp, but coming out of spring ball you normally have a pretty good direction of what type of offense you are going to be next year so you can move forward over the summer with the direction you want to go as an offense.”
There is no practice scheduled for today, but work will resume on Tuesday with practices also scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week.
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