Canadian native Ben Arbuckle ready to take over the offense for Washington State football
Check out the Wikipedia entry for Canadian, Texas and scroll down until you reach the "Notable People" section. There's seven names on there, five listed as either businessmen and/or politician, one listed as rancher and politician, and one listed as Army South Command Sergeant Major.
It's still very early, but Washington State offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle is well on the trajectory to becoming the eighth name on that list. He's already had a hand in developing one of the greatest college quarterbacks of all time, oversaw the sixth best offense in the nation last season and is now the offensive coordinator at a Power Five university.
And he's not even 30.
Humble beginnings
Arbuckle's family moved from Elgin to Canadian in 2006. He’d go on to have a tremendous high school career under legendary coach Chris Koetting, throwing for 7,500 yards and 95 touchdowns in two seasons as the starting quarterback.
Despite initially committing to UTSA upon his graduation in 2014, Arbuckle opted to give up football and instead attend West Texas A&M. After two years away from the game, however, he felt a call to go back.
“After being out of it for a year I realized I really, really missed it,” Arbuckle said. “It was easy to get in touch with coach (Mike) Nesbit, who was the head coach at WT at the time. When I told him I was interested in getting back into football he was all game for it and allowed me to join the team.”
Arbuckle started seven games as a junior, throwing for 1,241 yards and 15 touchdowns. He lost the starting job his senior year and once again he felt his time on the gridiron was done for good.
That was until another call, this one the literal kind.
‘I got a call’
It was Arbuckle’s old friend Ethan Morris telling him about an unpaid volunteer position at Houston Baptist. Arbuckle and his wife Lauren married right out of college and moved to Houston, so the job was in the area. He’d been working in oil and gas and “hating it” for three months, so Arbuckle figured it was worth putting a call in to the offensive coordinator at HBU.
The OC? Zach Kittley, who is now calling plays for Texas Tech.
It didn’t take long for Kittley to return the call to Arbuckle and offer him the job. To this day, Arbuckle gives total credit for his own success to Kittley for the opportunity he granted him.
“Coach Kittley taught me everything and gave me a chance,” Arbuckle said. “Anything that I’ve done in my short career is not possible without him. He’s the absolute best at what he does…I learned a lot of football from him, but just how to interact with people on your staff and players is probably the number one thing he taught me.”
After two and a half years of being unpaid, and with the pandemic starting, Arbuckle knew it was time to start bringing home the bacon. He accepted the offensive coordinator position at Seminole High School where he spent six months, including the 2020 season.
That’s when he got another one of those calls.
‘We’re moving to Kentucky’
This time it was Kittley on the other end. He’d just taken the job as offensive coordinator at Western Kentucky and wanted to know if Arbuckle would like to come with him. Arbuckle made a very dangerous move after that.
“I don’t even think I told my wife I accepted the job,” he said with a laugh. “I just told her we’re moving to Kentucky.”
Arbuckle was named offensive quality control coach for the 2021 season, reuniting him with Kittley and their quarterback at Houston Baptist, Bailey Zappe.
Under Kittley's guidance, Zappe broke Joe Burrow’s single season NCAA records for passing yards (5,967) and touchdowns (62). Zappe now plays for the New England Patriots.
At the end of the year, Kittley departed to take the same position with the Red Raiders. Head coach Tyson Helton needed a new play caller and he turned to the 26-year old Arbuckle to take on that role as well as that of quarterbacks coach.
Despite losing Zappe, the Hilltoppers didn’t miss a beat. They finished sixth in the nation in yards, first in passing and 15th in scoring under Arbuckle’s guidance on the way to a 9-5 record. That included a 44-23 victory over South Alabama in the New Orleans Bowl. It was there that Arbuckle got one last call.
Movin’ on up
This time the voice who greeted him was unfamiliar. It was Jake Dickert, who finished his first full season as the head football coach at Washington State. He was looking for a new offensive coordinator and wanted to know if Arbuckle was interested.
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This time, Arbuckle wisely waited to tell his wife before saying yes. After celebrating their son’s first Christmas, Arbuckle accepted the position, making him the youngest primary coordinator for a Power Five school at 27-years old. Ask him what that means to him, though, and his answer is, “not much.”
“Not a lot goes through my mind whenever I hear it,” Arbuckle said. “Someone hired me to do a job so I’m going to do it the best that I can.”
Where I’m going, where I’ve been
Arbuckle has been in Pullman since January. He inherits an offense that finished eighth in the Pac 12 last year, but returns one of the top quarterbacks in the conference in Cam Ward, a former University of Incarnate Word transfer. Arbuckle is excited to get to work with the entire offense, but Ward in particular.
“Cam is unbelievably talented,” Arbuckle said. “He has great arm strength and is very elusive in the pocket with his ability to extend plays. There were a few things I think Cam can work on and just make him that much better and we really tackled that hard this spring. He just keeps on getting better and better so I’m just excited to watch him go out there, sling it around, cut it loose, play free and put the team in the best situations to win.”
Arbuckle added Dickert has established a positive culture at Washington State. It’s a culture that reminds him a great deal of what football was like under Koetting during his years at Canadian.
“Coach Koetting went above and beyond in everything that he did and that always resonated with me,” Arbuckle said. “Canadian has a culture of determination, hard work, and doing things the right way. You don’t have that stretch of success that Canadian has had for 16 years if you don’t do everything the right way every single day. I couldn’t ask for a better place to live, grow up and play football for.”
And it’s about keeping that Canadian tradition in mind. He won’t predict a record or how many yards WSU will throw for in 2023. He’s only focused on making sure the Cougars do the right thing the right way every day. If they can do that, he’s confident the success will come.
“Our kids are going to come out and compete every single play and every single day," Arbuckle said. "There isn’t going to be a game that we’re out of. In this profession you just hope you’re on the side of the W’s more than the L’s. I know the kids that we have and the coaches we have so I like our chances against anybody.”
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This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Canadian native Ben Arbuckle excited to join Washington State football
