Former Texas A&M OC Jake Spavital New Cal Golden Bears Offensive Coordinator

College Football Leave a comment

Written by Ryan Wright

Twitter: @HogManInLA

The revolving doors on the various college coaching staffs slowed a notch when Cal announced the hiring of Jake Spavital as the Golden Bears new offensive coordinator on Thursday.

Spavital walked into a unique but deteriorating situation at his previous stop in College Station with the Aggies. In 2012, Texas A&M took the SEC and the college football world by storm with Johnny Manziel in the pocket finishing with an 11-2 win-loss record and the redshirt freshman winning the Heisman Trophy Award. After the season, offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury left to become the head coach at Texas Tech opening up a spot for Spavital on the staff.

In Spavital’s three seasons with the Aggies serving as both offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, A&M continued to roll on offense with Manziel guiding the team in 2013, then Kenny Hill and Kyle Allen in 2014, and Kyle Allen and Kyler Murray in 2015. Aggies head coach Kevin Sumlin was not pleased with the play of his starting quarterbacks in 2014 and in 2015 first benching Hill for Allen and then Allen for Murray a year later. The dysfunction took its toll with both Kyle Allen and Kyler Murray leaving Texas A&M at the end of the season with Allen going to Houston and Murray heading to Oklahoma.

Spavital and Summlin “parted ways” on Jan. 3, 2016. Summlin hired former Arizona State and UCLA Bruins offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone to replace Spavital on Jan. 8. The offensive coordinator position opened up after Tony Franklin left the program to take the same role with Middle Tennessee State. Franklin came to Cal with head coach Sonny Dykes from Louisiana Tech holding the titles of offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach (2010-12). He was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the Golden Bears from 2013-15 adding running backs coach title in 2015.

Spavital comes into a unique position with Cal in the Pac-12. The offenses are more wide open in the Pac-12 and the Golden Bears were among the best in the nation passing the ball in 2015 finishing with the No. 5 ranked unit compiling a total of 4,892 yards.

Photo credit: saturdaydownsouth.com; Spavital with Kenny Hill (2014).

Leave a Reply