On Monday, December 2nd, Florida Atlantic University athletics announced that Zach Kittley would be the program’s new head football coach. This was the result of a process that took FAU athletic director Brian White, president Stacy Volnick, and the board of trustees around 2 weeks to finalize. Kittley was previously the offensive coordinator at three programs; Texas Tech from 2022-2024, Western Kentucky in 2021, and Houston Baptist from 2018-2020. Prior to 2018, when the 26 year old at the time got his first shot at calling plays, he was at Texas Tech as a graduate assistant.
Kittley has coached some of college football’s most impressive offenses, it’s one of the reasons he was able to become FBS division 1 college football’s youngest head coach. Some notable names he has coached; none other than Patrick Mahomes and Bailey Zappe. Kittley was a close mentor to Patrick Mahomes in 2016, and he helped Bailey Zappe throw for almost 6,000 yards and 62 touchdowns in 2021. That Western Kentucky passing offense was ranked none other than number 1 in the country. Some of the coaches Kittley has worked with are Kliff Kinsgbury, Joey McGuire, Eric Morris, Tyson Helton, and Ben Arbuckle; an impressive wide-ranging group of coaches.
Kittleys offenses have succeeded everywhere he has been, so what goes into his offense that makes it so lethal? I’ll be breaking down some of the schematics on what he offers as a play caller, as well as how he puts his young athletes in positions to make plays.
In order to clarify Kittley will be calling the offense, I asked him his plans on that situation. His response was, “I am absolutely calling the plays. I’m going to coach the quarterbacks and call the plays”. It makes sense on all fronts for Kittley to continue calling plays, great play callers should continue to hold that responsibility.
This has been done all over college football and the NFL. Notable play callers such as Andy Reid, Kyle Shanahan, Steve Sarkissian, Matt LaFleur, Lincoln Riley, Mike McDaniel, Sean McVay, and Josh Heupel all are head coaches in the NFL/CFB world who call plays on game days. Kittley will still have an offensive coordinator to bounce concepts off of. One thing that has been said in coaching circles is good play callers do not isolate themselves completely from others. This will be the case in FAU with Kittley.
In his opening press conference, Zach Kittley was not apprehensive to talk about how dynamic the offense he will bring down to Boca Raton will be. He said in his opening presser, “I’m about to bring an exciting offense here back to FAU. It’s going to be a lot of excitement, we’re going to light up the scoreboard, we’re going to run it up on people.” What gives him the confidence to make a statement such as this in a room full of boosters, board members, fans, and alumni? Well his track record supports that. At Texas Tech the past two years, his offense has been ranked as the best in his conference by multiple metrics. Before that, at Western Kentucky, as mentioned before they were ranked number 1 in the country by all passing metrics. There is a clear trend that Kittleys offense is a high octane machine that can sling it downfield at will.
What goes into this high octane offense that Kittley runs. It starts with tempo, Kittleys offense loves to play fast to put his team at an advantage. What advantage does a no huddle offense bring to a football team? For starters it keeps the defenses personnel on the field, so favorable matchups could be exploited for the offense. Additionally running a hurry up no huddle offense can also give your offense an advantage with the defense not being fully set. Any time the defense is not set, it is an immediate advantage for the offense as they get extra time for their plays to develop.
From a schematic perspective, Kittleys offense is ultimately going to run through the man receiving the snap. The quarterback is going to be the feature man in this offense, as he will be the one pushing the ball downfield. When asked about the scheme of the offense Kittley stated, ““It starts with the quarterback. This is very much so a quarterback driven offense so I’ve gotta get the signal caller back there. After that it’s going to start up front, we’ve got to be able to protect the quarterback because you could have the quarterback but if you can’t protect him none of that matters. Clearly part of my job is the schematic part and getting guys open and finding ways to get playmakers the ball. But it’s ultimately going to start with the quarterback and the offensive line and that’s where we got to start.” It is apparent Kittley is going to want a talented passer in Boca Raton, he will likely look to target multiple guys in the transfer portal.
Building off the schematics, Kittley is very versatile in his passing attack. At Texas Tech they had mismatch weapons at the tight end position. With the trio of Jalin Conyers, Mason Tharp, and Johncarlos Miller II, they combined for double digit touchdowns. There were multiple times where Kittley would utilize their skill sets, multiple times during the games I watched Kittley would go in 12 personnel (2 tight ends on the field). These tight ends would be utilized anywhere from the screen game to being a red zone threat, with Tech quarterback Behren Morton being able to throw the ball up for a contested catch opportunity.
Kittleys offense would also line up 5 wide, with the quarterback throwing the ball more than the typical college offense you would see. This is a large reason why his offense gets the air raid tag, where the quarterback needs to spread the ball out to his receivers. The screen game is apparent in different variations of empty gun formations.
Despite a clear admiration for an elite passing game, Kittley does not forget about the other phase of offense, the run game. Kittley stated yesterday, “A lot of air raid things going on right there. Let me tell you this, we’re going to be able to run the football. Brian (White) hit on it and I’m so glad he did. At the end of the day it’s about winning football games. I’ve been a part of a lot of games where I’ve lost games 55-52. We don’t want to do that around here. I’d rather win the game 10 to 14 if I have to.” No matter what level of football it is, a good run game is necessary in order to have a successful offense. The run game opens up the passing game, and vice versa. Kittley knows this and has committed to this since calling plays.
Kittley has coached one of the nations top running backs the last 2 years in Tahj Brooks at Texas Tech. Brooks has rushed for 3,046 yards and 27 touchdowns the last two years for Tech and will undoubtedly be one of the premier backs that teams will be targeting in this upcoming NFL draft. While Brooks is an unreal talent, Kittleys creative run scheme that he adopted years ago definitely plays into Brooks’ success.
What goes into his run scheme? Well, I also asked Coach Kittley this question. He had two things in mind, adaptation to playing style and finding different ways to win. This was his response, “I had to get really creative two years ago when I had a lot of quarterback issues so whenever your quarterbacks hurt you got to do some different things to move the ball and find ways to win like I said. So we’ve studied a lot of teams like the Detroit Lions, San Francisco 49ers. The biggest thing is really trying to find out what is our offensive line good at as far as blocking schemes in the run game and also finding out what kind of running back you have. The guy I had last year, Tahj Brooks, he’s an inside the tackles runner and that’s why we kind of majored in those inside zone and some of those gap scheme runs. I think that’s the biggest thing, having to adapt a little bit and finding ways to win games.”
A commitment to a mix of run and pass is how his offense remains so difficult for college defenses to defend, but I wouldn’t be giving a complete rundown of the offense if I didn’t mention the RPO game that Kittley utilizes. For those unaware with RPOs, they are taking the football world by storm, it is utilized on all levels. RPO stands for run, pass, option, it is a play where the QB needs to make a quick decision. The QB could either hand the ball off, pass it, or in some cases take off themselves on an option look. The key for the QB is they need to make that decision quickly if they pass because the offensive line is run blocking. Failure to do so would lead to an illegal man downfield penalty on one of his offensive lineman.
Kittley utilizes a large range of RPOs, and unleashes them multiple times throughout the game. Typically these RPOs are out of a shotgun formation and involve a slant route from a receiving weapon. Some other route combinations they utilize with RPOs are bubble screens, spot screens, hitches, outs, and digs.
All in all, Zach Kittley runs a creative, versatile offense that takes the air raid scheme to a different level. Kittleys commitment to a strong run game and utilizing RPOs will be a tough game plan matchup for whoever they face next year. The next question will be which players will be in this scheme in order to get the benefits of it. This question remains to be seen, the transfer portal will be utilized as it officially opens on Monday December 9th for all football players.