Texas State's G.J. Kinne won't call the plays, but he will have lots of input with his OC
SAN MARCOS — Texas State didn’t have an offensive coordinator last season after former coach Jake Spavital took on the job himself, opting not to replace Jacob Peeler, who had left to be the receivers coach at Missouri before the season.
Spavital called the plays in 2022 and the two years before with Peeler as the OC, delegating that task to his OC only in his first season, 2019, with Bob Stitt. Stitt was fired after the Bobcats went 3-9 and averaged 18.4 points that year. They averaged 23.6 points in the three seasons that Spavital called plays.
It’s a different situation now with new coach G.J. Kinne and offensive coordinator Mack Leftwich. The pair teamed up at Incarnate Word last season, with Leftwich calling the plays for an offense that scored 52 points per game.
“There’s no ego in that room,” Kinne said. “I want Mack to be the best offensive coordinator in the country. I want him to score every time, and I hope every play he calls is the best. He does a great job with those guys, and, for me, we have a great relationship. … I don’t want to breathe down his neck, so to say. Let’s give him some freedom. You got to let those guys do it. If you hire them, let them do it.”
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The 2022 season was Leftwich’s first as a collegiate play-caller and offensive coordinator at just 27 years old. His first coaching stop after graduating from UTEP in 2017 was as offensive coordinator for Lehman High School for the 2017 season. He joined the Incarnate Word staff as a graduate assistant in 2018 before coaching the quarterbacks there from 2019 to 2021.
Though Leftwich, 28, will call plays for the Bobcats, Kinne will have plenty of input, as he did with the Cardinals. Especially on game days.
“However much input he has, I definitely listen to it,” Leftwich said. “On game day, for the most part, he’s been great. Obviously, you go into the season last year and you don’t really know how that dynamic is really going to work. He was unbelievable. In some critical situations, he made some really good suggestions on plays. I have a ton of respect for him as a football coach and an offensive mind.”
While the fast-paced, run-and-shoot style offense worked at the FCS level to the tune of a 12-2 record and a Southland Conference championship, introducing it to new players at the FBS level is a bigger challenge.
Leftwich’s solution: Keep it simple.
“We want those guys to be masters of what they do,” he said. “We’re not going to come out there and run a million different plays. We’re going to be really good at four to five run schemes, and we’re going to be really good at our base set of pass plays. Let our guys go play fast.”
The Bobcats will travel to Waco on Saturday to open the season against Baylor.
Volleyball: The Bobcats (3-1) won the first match of the Texas State Invitational on Friday, beating North Texas 3-2 after trailing 2-0. They will finish the tournament Saturday against No. 13 Houston. The Bobcats went 2-1 in the Tennessee Classic last weekend, sweeping Marist College and Tennessee-Martin, and being swept by Tennessee.
Soccer: The Bobcats (2-3) have lost three consecutive matches, being shut out in all three. After losing at home 3-0 to North Texas on Aug. 24 and 1-0 at UTSA last Sunday, Texas State lost at home Thursday night to Oklahoma State 3-0. The Bobcats will visit Houston Christian on Sunday.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas State's G.J. Kinne, OC Mack Leftwich coaching together again
