What Does An Offensive Coordinator Do In Football?

If you watch football often you’ve likely heard of offensive coordinators, yet many fans do not know what they do.

Offensive coordinators are primarily responsible for calling the offensive plays, designing the offense, and preparing the offensive game plan.

During a game, an offensive coordinator can watch from the sideline with the team and the head coach or they can head up to the booth.

The booth allows the offensive coordinator an opportunity to get an eagle-eye view of the game potentially making it easier to see what is going on.

The offensive coordinator is one position below the head coach in a team’s coaching tree. On football teams, there is going to be a head coach which sits at the top of the coaching tree.

Below them, there is a defensive coordinator and an offensive coordinator. These are the two highest-ranking coaches behind the head coach. Below the coordinators, there is a large number of other coaches primarily positional coaches and assistants.

Offenisve Coordinator Duties

As we explained earlier the duties of an offensive coordinator are to call the plays, design the offense, and prepare the game plans.

Below we will explain all of these duties in more depth to help you gain a better understanding of what these coaches do.

Calling The Plays

One of if not the most important aspects of being an offensive coordinator is calling the offensive plays. On most football teams the offensive coordinator is going to be solely in charge of calling all offensive plays.

Though on some teams an offensive-minded head coach may take the reigns and call plays himself.

Playcalling is likely the biggest impact that an offensive coordinator can have on a game. This coach will be responsible for taking into account all factors of the game when calling their plays.

They need to know the in-game situation, the weaknesses of the defense, and the strengths of the offense.

Oftentimes offensive coordinators can find themselves as the scapegoats if a team failed to perform well consistently.

You will often notice offensive coaches wearing headsets during games in order to relay plays to their quarterback.

Designing The Offense

Another job the offensive coordinator often has is designing the offense. In the offseason, the coaching staff will work out what sort of offense they want to run in the coming year.

This job is often given to the offensive coordinator as they are often the most knowledgeable offensive coach on the team.

During this time the offensive coordinator will come up with what sort of formations and personnel groupings the team will use.

The offensive coordinator will also come up with the specific plays that the offense will run throughout the year.

In today’s NFL offenses are quite creative which means that offensive coordinators have more wiggle more when it comes to creating their offense. This has led some OCs to come up with some very interesting strategies to beat out their opponents.

Preparing Game Plans

One more job that an offensive coordinator has is creating game plans for each upcoming game.

Prior to playing a team the offensive coordinator must look at the opposing team’s defense to determine how they should attack them offensively.

The OC will spend the week coming up with a plan to effectively beat the other team. The players on the offense will practice these plays and game plans throughout the week.

One game day the offensive coordinator will have a chance to use his game plan in action.

That’s all on offensive coordinators to learn more about the football offense see our guide to offensive positions in football or our guide to understanding the offensive line.

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