His goal is 50 points. Boise State’s new OC developed approach as 25-year-old play caller
Boise State offensive coordinator Tim Plough promised to deliver an aggressive, exciting brand of football at his introductory press conference.
At UC Davis, he said he didn’t even look at the scoreboard until the Aggies scored 50 points.
“We’re not going to wait for the defense to show us something. We’re going to attack the defense and make them react to us,” he said. “The easiest way to win a football game is to make more explosive plays than your opponent and win the turnover battle.”
As the offensive coordinator at UC Davis, he piloted a unit that averaged more than 40 pass attempts a game every year between 2017 and 2019. The Aggies led the Big Sky Conference with 484.7 yards of offense and 384.3 passing yards a game in 2017, and with 322.8 passing yards a game in 2018.
UC Davis was also one of the highest-scoring offenses in the FCS under Plough’s watch, averaging 39.7 points a game in 2018 and 33.6 in 2017.
That average dipped to 28.7 points a game in 2019, which ranked No. 7 in the Big Sky, and UC Davis didn’t play in 2020 after the conference postponed the season because of COVID-19. The Aggies are preparing for a spring season, which is scheduled to begin Feb. 27.
Last season, Boise State led the Mountain West with 33.9 points a game. The Broncos led the conference with 34.7 in 2019 and ranked No. 2 with 35.5 in 2018.
Plough said he doesn’t intend to rewrite the Boise State playbook. He envisions his offense as a blend of concepts the Broncos have employed for years and his up-tempo, ultra-aggressive approach at UC Davis, which earned him a spot on the American Football Coaches Association’s list of the top 35 coaches in the country under 35 years old in 2018.
“The first thing we want to be is explosive,” Plough said. “I hope that breeds confidence in the guys and is an exciting brand of football.”
Boise State isn’t about to morph into an Air Raid team, but Plough isn’t going to change the way he attacks defenses, either. He can’t. It’s ingrained.
One of his mentors, College of Idaho football coach Mike Moroski, joked that early in Plough’s career, he had to sit him down and remind him what a handoff was.
“From the day I met him, he’s had a charisma and intellect for the game,” said Moroski, a former offensive coordinator at UC Davis. “You’re always collaborating as a coach, always thinking about what’s the best use of your time and energy. Tim always had a keen interest in those things.”
Plough started calling plays early in his career. He was only 25 years old when he was handed the headset as the primary play caller at UC Davis 10 years ago.
He joined the staff as a full-time assistant in 2009. Before the second game of the 2010 season, Moroski — then the Aggies’ offensive coordinator — and former head coach Bob Biggs handed him the keys to the offense.
“I trusted Tim,” Moroski said. “I thought of him as a young, phenomenal coach. I love to see young guys advance, and he was ready.”
Plough admitted there were plenty of mistakes that first year, but that was when he began developing the offensive philosophy that made him a hot commodity in the coaching world and eventually landed him his first FBS job, at Boise State.
“He really gets the offense to play at a high-octane level,” said UC Davis football coach Dan Hawkins — Boise State’s former head coach — who brought Plough back to Davis in 2017. “The kids play fast, they play hard and they have fun. Every quarterback he’s ever coached has done real well. Every offense he’s ever coached has done real well.”
Boise State announced Plough as a member of new head coach Andy Avalos’ staff on Jan. 12, but he’s had plenty of opportunities to leave UC Davis in the past. He turned down offers to become an FCS head coach and opportunities to be an assistant at the FBS level, according to Hawkins, but Plough said the chance to join Avalos at Boise State was too good to pass up.
“UC Davis is my home. I thought I was going to stay forever and be head coach,” Plough said. “It was going to take something fantastic to get me out of that situation, and this is truly an extraordinary opportunity for me to be around somebody I respect. Coach Avalos is a great coach, a great person and a great father.”
Finding an offensive coordinator in the FCS ranks may seem like a stretch to some, but Hawkins’ message to every coach who has ever reached out about Plough has been the same: He’s a star on the rise.
That’s what he told two former Boise State coaches — Chris Petersen at Washington and former Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter — when they had openings.
“I tell everybody, wherever he goes, he’s going to rise to the top,” Hawkins said. “He has a high degree of intellect and he can retain a lot of information, and he probably watches more film than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Hawkins said he began hearing about Plough as soon as he took over at UC Davis in 2016. Plough was a quarterback for the Aggies from 2003 to 2007, a student assistant coach in 2008 and the quarterbacks coach in 2009. He was the passing game coordinator from 2010 to 2012 and mentored Randy Wright, who became the first freshman to start at quarterback for the Aggies in a decade. He left for four years to be an assistant at Northern Arizona from 2013 to 2016.
A ‘Davis guy’
Plough is a “Davis guy,” according to Hawkins.
“It’s a guy who can look at the world in a big picture and understand all the parts to it,” Hawkins said.
The native of San Diego is continuing the UC Davis-to-Boise State pipeline, which produced Hawkins and Petersen.
Hawkins began his coaching career at UC Davis in 1983. He was the Broncos’ head coach from 2001 to 2005. Petersen also got his start with the Aggies, coaching the freshman team in 1987-88 before three years as the wide receivers coach on the varsity squad. He was Boise State’s head coach from 2006 to 2013.
Former Boise State player Wes Nurse also served two stints on the UC Davis staff — first in 2011 and again in 2015. He was director of football operations when Plough returned in 2017.
“He’s a football junkie,” Nurse said. “You could tell right away that he had an affinity for calling plays, and he’s not afraid to evolve.”
Another addition to Avalos’ staff also came from UC Davis. Tim Keane was announced as the Broncos’ offensive line coach on Friday after having played and coached with Plough. Keane was a starting center for the Aggies, and he’s been their offensive line coach since 2016.
“Coach Plough and I have a good relationship, and we speak the same language,” Keane told reporters on Saturday. “It’s all about attacking. We don’t get too caught up in what the defense is doing and trying to read coverages and react, because at the end of the day, if we execute, no one can stop us.”
‘It’s more about people than status’
Moroski has known Plough since he was a quarterback at Ramona High in California. Moroski recruited him to UC Davis and they remain in regular contact.
“We felt like he was going to be a real difference-maker for us,” said Moroski, adding that Plough was also a talented center fielder at Ramona. “You could see right away that he was bright and he understood things at a higher level than a lot of players at his age.”
Moroski, who took over at College of Idaho in 2013, said he knew Plough was destined to be a coach long before his playing career ended.
“He has always had coaching on his mind,” Moroski said. “He was a great teammate, and he was very perceptive about what we were doing even when he wasn’t playing.”
Plough said Moroski was like a father to him, and being closer to his mentor is a bonus when it comes to moving to Boise.
“He has been as big a contributor to everything I’ve done in football as anyone I’ve been around,” Plough said.
Moroski pushed Plough to leave UC Davis because he knew how bright his future was. No matter where Plough’s career takes him, he won’t forget where he comes from.
“In this business, guys can get lost in what doesn’t matter: money, fame, whatever,” Plough said. “The way I was brought up by the coaches I was around was it’s more about the people than the status.”
