How is LSU Football Offensive Coordinator Jake Peetz Approaching Being a First Time Playcaller?
From Norv Turner to Jay Gruden to Sean McVay and Joe Brady, LSU offensive coordinator Jake Peetz has learned under some of the top offensive minds in football. He's spent the last 10 years honing his craft, working with running backs, quarterbacks and as an offensive analyst with four different NFL teams.
But he's never been a playcaller and enters year one at LSU with an exteremly talented offensive roster looking for develeopment and consistency in 2021. The early returns a week into his tenure have been overwhelmingly positive as he and passing game coordinator DJ Mangas get to know the players.
Even after just one interview with the press, it's easy to see that Peetz is trying to get with the players and learn more about them as people than football players. That was certainly a problem in 2020 and it's a good sign that the program is moving in a positive direction this offseason.
However, those on-field schemes and in-game adjustments will ultimately dictate how effective his first year as a a playcaller will be. He's worked with first-time playcallers at the NFL level in McVay at Washington and Brady in Carolina. Peetz said he learned something different from each.
"Seeing how Sean handled the situation, how it is about getting your staff organized, learning your players and then delving in what they do well," Peetz said. "You talk about first-time play-callers—but then Norm Chow, Norv Turner, Jay Gruden, some of the elite play-callers in the game, and that’s why I feel very blessed to be in the position I’m in. I’m excited about the opportunity and showing what these people invested in me was very well invested.”
Brady, who was 31 years old and a first time offensive coordinator with the Panthers during the 2020 season, was someone who Peetz grew to have great admiration and respect for in a very short time. It wasn't as much learning the X's and O's from Brady as much as it was learning how Brady addressed his players and was always clearly able to relate his thoughts to everyone in the locker room.
"What Joe has, he has such grace with how he delivers his thoughts," Peetz said. "He’s elite with intelligence. But the way that he communicates, not just with me but with the players, he helped me to make some things a little more simple.
"There were times where I thought he helped me take it from advanced math to maybe Algebra 1, which, in learning these systems, it’s not about what I know. It’s about what these guys know. It’s not about what we know, it’s what they can learn and retain and play fast with."
The offensive schemes will come with further dissection of what each player does well and orchestrating the offense around those strengths. But Peetz will need to prove early on that he can be an elite in-game adjuster alongside Mangas.
Both will face pressure to get this offense back on track and the lessons learned over 10 years in the NFL will be of vital importance.
