Boise State is calling and Dirk Koetter is listening. Of course he is. He would be foolish not to.
“Yeah, it’s special for me. I’m from there,” Koetter said Tuesday, standing in a hallway in the Falcons’ offices after he met with the media. “It’s my home state. I’ve got a lot of family and friends and stuff there. We’ll see how it turns out. But I’ve got a great job here.”
Except that it really hasn’t been great this season. Koetter is in his second year as the Falcons’ offensive coordinator. That should have been akin to being the director of gems and precious metals at Tiffany’s.
Matt Ryan. Julio Jones. Roddy White. Tony Gonzalez. Steven Jackson.
Was there a way to botch this up?
“Yeah, I was excited,” Koetter said.
But the Falcons went south quickly. They’re 3-10 in a season that will come to its merciful end in three weeks but has been relatively dead for months.
The jeweled offense has been the centerpiece of this wreckage. White suffered an ankle sprain before the season and never fully recovered. Jackson, the projected significant upgrade at running back, pulled up lame in Game 2 and only in the past few weeks is starting to run better. Jones broke his foot in the fifth game. The line has fluctuated between fair and dreadful. Ryan has felt the effects of all of it and has had his share of misfires.
Now Boise State is phoning Koetter to see if he would like to become their head coach for a second time. Answer: Of course he would.
He was there for three seasons and directed the nation's No. 1 scoring offense before moving on to Arizona State. It's not common for a coach to want to return to a place where he coached before. But Koetter is a native of Pocatello, Idaho, and the son of a long-time Idaho high school football coach, Jim Koetter.
Would he even be looking at that job if it was somewhere else?
“No.”
And then: “You know, it was almost exactly 13 years ago that I left there.”
Who knows that? Think he likes it there?
Conversely, it’s not nirvana here. Koetter isn’t complaining about his current job. The results, maybe, but certainly not the job, the organization, his superiors or the players. “I’m a football coach in the NFL. I’m doing what I love to do,” he said.
When asked later if this season had soured him at all, he said, “No. Absolutely not. Not even close. In fact, if anything — and I think I speak for anyone — that fine line between winning and losing just makes us want to work harder to get back to the other side of it again. But that’s a story for another day.”
He is getting blamed in some corners for the offensive problems this season. He shouldn’t.
When a team goes 3-10, there’s room for everybody at the blame table. But the Falcons’ problems on offense haven’t been the result of scheme or bad play-calling. It’s about personnel. The best guys have been injured. The worst guys shouldn’t be starting. It has been affirmed that this roster was built with pretty pieces and a faulty foundation. Maybe things would’ve been fine if the injuries hadn’t occurred. But when the pretty pieces cracked, the foundation was exposed. There’s little a play-caller can do to fix that.
“We’ve lost six games by less than one touchdown,” Koetter said. “What hits me like a ton of bricks is there comes a point in every game where we just need one more play to get over the hump. We’re not getting that play.”
The Falcons are coming off a 22-21 loss in Green Bay. The offense had only two scoring drives and one of those was a gimme: a 13-yard touchdown drive following a Packers’ fumble. Atlanta had two three-and-outs and a fumble on their first three possessions of the second half and went scoreless on their last seven in the game.
An excerpt of Koetter’s post-film recap: “We missed a block where one of our own guys knocks his own man off, trips over our own guy’s feet. There’s a couple of (missed) thrown balls, whether it’s the throw or the catch or the protection. So many little tiny things. We’re better than that. Players are frustrated. I appreciate the effort but the execution has to be more precise.”
He has been a coach long enough — 30 years, 10 jobs — that he is not going to be fazed when fans or media question play-calling. But he admits this season has been more difficult than any other to deal with.
“Yeah, because of the expectation,” he said. “Because of where we find ourselves right now.
“Losing is hard. Losing eats at you. It’s no fun.”
The potential for fun has left Flowery Branch for this season. It could be back next season, but Koetter may not be.
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