What differentiates the job of OC versus a regular assistant?

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What makes it harder than a regular assistant?

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Regular assisstants jobs are just to coach up their particular group (O-Line, DBs, etc) Most the time OCs are also QB coaches so they will spend part of the practice coaching the QBs during individual drills and then spend the group and team part of practice calling the plays to run.

During Games the OC calls all plays and is usually up in the booth while the assistants are on the field to correct things during games.

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How much help do you get with a game plan from everyone, or is it solely your call with the head coach's approval?

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This completely differs from team to team. It is all dependent on how much freedom the Head Coach wants to give an OC. The gameplan is usually worked up between all offensive coaches with final approvals going through the Head Coach.

During games the Head Coach is on the sideline and will tell the OC if he wants to run particular plays (Run more outside plays, take a deep shot on the next play, etc.) It is the OCs job to switch up game play calling based on how the defense is attacking them.

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How much film work will you do?

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The OC and DC probably do more film work than anyone else on the team.

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How many games do you go back to understand you opponent?

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This answer differs as well. Most the time it is just a game or two back. Some times they will look at film of another teams offense that did well against a defense and try to look at how they attacked the defense and how they were successful. This can usually give a basis for the type of game calling an OC might try. If a team has weak DBs they may try more deep passes. Slow Linebackers they may try to get the linebackers matchup with their fast running backs on plays over the middle. Aggresive D linemen the OC might call more draws and misdirection.

All this gameplanning though will just about always change during game time so it is the OCs job as well as the rest of the assistants to see how the defense is playing in the game, find potential weaknesses and exploit them.