In today’s world of college football, where offense has taken over, few jobs in the country face more scrutiny than that of a college offensive coordinator. It is a role that often sees high turnover on a yearly basis, as teams are quick to make changes when points are not being put on the board and most of that blame falling on the Offensive Coordinator.
Several programs will feature new faces calling plays this season, while some others have coordinators who have been around for a while and are entering a make-or-break year or are on the brink of earning a head coaching opportunity. With that being said, here are the offensive coordinators in college football with the most pressure heading into the 2025 season.
Most college programs would be thrilled to have an offensive coordinator like Mike Bobo, whose offense has averaged 35.8 points per game for a team that has gone 24-4 over his two seasons in the role. But this is Georgia, where Bobo took over as OC for a team that was coming off of back-to-back national championships and has not won a playoff game since then.
The former Bulldogs QB now enters this year with the noise surrounding him as loud as ever. Last season ended on a sour note, with fans calling for Bobo’s job after a playoff loss in which the offense scored just 10 points and looked horrendous for most of the game. While Georgia was forced to start backup quarterback Gunner Stockton, the projected starter for 2025, in that game, the offense looked shaky several other times with Carson Beck on the field in 2024.
While some of the blame did fall on Beck, who was once projected as the No. 1 overall pick for this past NFL Draft, Bobo is the one who remains in Athens and will have a big spotlight on him this season.
His name may not be well known now, but expect that to change, either for better or worse, early in this season. Michigan went one-and-done last year as they fired offensive coordinator Kirk Campbell just days after their upset victory over Ohio State. Now enters Chip Lindsey, who spent 13 years at the beginning of his coaching career at the high school level, has held the OC role with five different college programs, and is now facing one of the most intriguing quarterback situations in college football.
Lindsey has led some impressive offenses in his career, including Southern Miss in 2015 which ranked in the top 15 nationally in total points, passing yards, and touchdowns. He spent the past two seasons at North Carolina, where the Tar Heels averaged 33.4 points per game and led the ACC in rushing offense in 2024, a feat Michigan fans will surely appreciate.
While Lindsey has had past success at the college level, this is undoubtedly the biggest job of his career. With a head coach in Sherrone Moore, who witnessed an abysmal offense last season and was a great OC for the Wolverines himself not too long ago, the pressure on Lindsey is even greater.
The Badgers fired offensive coordinator Phil Longo near the end of last season after a failed attempt to shift away from their traditional ground-and-pound, run-heavy identity to Longo’s Air Raid system. Luke Fickell seemingly had a plan in mind, firing Longo before season's end and quickly hiring Jeff Grimes in early December.
Grimes comes in with 20 years of coaching experience that includes stops at several high-level programs, including LSU, Auburn, Baylor, and BYU. While with the Cougars, he helped orchestrate the third-ranked offense in the country alongside QB Zach Wilson and was a finalist for the Broyles Award. As a former offensive lineman and longtime O-Line coach, Grimes feels like a great hire for the Badgers as an OC who leans on a physical rushing attack but is not afraid to throw the ball down the field.
Having a former Big Ten starting quarterback in Billy Edwards Jr. is a benefit, but questions remain about the supporting cast, especially at the skill positions. If improvement is not made in 2025, especially on the offensive side of the ball, time may be up for Fickell and his staff in Madison.
Not much has gone right during the Brent Venables era at Oklahoma, and the offense has certainly been a dark spot. The pressure to fix that will now fall on Ben Arbuckle who is coming in with his high-powered air raid offensive, his quarterback, and a boat load of transfers expected to make an immediate impact.
At just 29 years old, Arbuckle is the youngest OC at the Power Four level. His rise in the coaching world has been quick, as he began his career in 2018 as a quality control coach at Houston Baptist. He broke onto the scene in 2021 as the co-OC and quarterbacks coach for one of the most productive offenses in the country at Western Kentucky with QB Bailey Zappe. Arbuckle then went on to Washington State, where he spent the last two seasons once again leading one of the top offenses in the sport and developing Cam Ward along with current Sooner John Mateer.
Now the young play-caller will be tasked with revamping an offense in the SEC and could be a major factor in whether or not Venables keeps his job after this season.
Any coaching position at Ohio State comes with a lot of pressure, but undoubtedly the most will be on Hartline as he takes on play-calling duties for the first time in his career. Long regarded as one of the top recruiters and position coaches in the country, Hartline was named offensive coordinator in 2023, but Ryan Day retained play-calling responsibilities. Then, last season, Chip Kelly was brought in to call the offense, with Hartline as co-OC in name.
Now the plan is for the offense to be his. It may take some time for Hartline to find his groove as a play caller, especially with a first-time starting QB, but it certainly does help to have a weapon like Jeremiah Smith on the outside.
There is a massive difference between just “calling plays” and “calling a game” as an OC, and if Hartline is unable to do the latter successfully, Ohio State fans will get loud quickly.