Roper has previously held OC roles at Duke, Florida, and (co-OC) South Carolina
Following the sudden and rather surprising – or unsurprising – news of Robert Anae’s firing and Kurt Roper’s promotion to offensive coordinator, now is as good of a time as any to get to know Roper.
Similar to the look at new Wolfpack defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot, let’s first look at the SP+ rankings and ratings of the offenses he’s coordinated:
- Duke – 2008 – 104th (17.8)
- Duke – 2009 – 87th (22.5)
- Duke – 2010 – 79th (23.8)
- Duke – 2011 – 90th (23.1)
- Duke – 2012 – 60th (28.3)
- Duke – 2013 – 48th (32.0)
- Florida – 2014 – 62nd (29.8)
- South Carolina – 2016 – 105th (22.7)
- South Carolina – 2017 – 69th (28.4)
The advanced numbers (excluding garbage time data) back up that Roper’s best offense was the one in his last year at Duke. Probably not by coincidence, it also happened to be his most balanced offense (61st in Rush Play Rate, 66th in Pass Play Rate). That Duke team went 10-4, marking the only double-digit win season in program history.
That Blue Devils offense could have been so much more except for two weak points: it lacked explosive plays (94th in Explosiveness) and it struggled converting scoring opportunities into points (120th in Points/Opportunity). The latter was attributed to a quarterback group that kept throwing the ball to the wrong team (19 interceptions at a 4.0% interception rate) and a kicking game that struggled on anything beyond an extra point (68.4% on Field Goal attempts).
For all of Ropers other Duke offenses, the passing game was relied on heavily (top 20 in Pass Play Rate each year from 2009-2012). The other thing his Duke teams routinely did well was staying ahead of the sticks and not being forced into passing downs.
To Roper’s credit, he adapted his offense to suit the personnel. Over his first four years as the OC at Duke, the offensive lines were horrendous, ranking 99th or worse each season in both Line Yards and Stuff Rate. After John Latina took over as Offensive Line coach (in 2011) and Run Game Coordinator (in 2012), the run game finally began to produce and Roper adjusted accordingly, using that strength to fuel the offense.
To piggyback off Steven’s article on Roper wanting to move the offense faster, his offenses mostly were average to above-average in seconds/play. His 2013 Duke squad finished 42nd in the country in that measure, the second best mark of his career to date.
This trend of adapting the offense to suit the personnel also extended to his Florida and South Carolina offenses. He should have never taken that Florida job – his coming onboard was a last ditch effort by Will Muschamp to save his job, and it didn’t work out for all involved with Muschamp and his assistants getting let go after the season.
The Gators went from averaging 18.8 points/game in 2013 to 30.2 points/game in 2014 under Roper. That was getting a lot of production out of a unit that just wasn’t very good (which is crazy to say about an offense that had eight future NFL players on the roster). The team survived on some explosive pass plays and finding some success at forcing the run every so often. The passing game was just awful.
Reuniting with Muschamp at South Carolina, Roper simply couldn’t muster anything out of a bad Gamecocks roster. While his 2016 group featured five future NFL skill position players, the offensive line was absolutely garbage, hamstringing the entire unit at every turn. The 2017 team saw overall improvement on the offensive end and the team went 9-4, but Roper’s unit failed to score more than 17 points in any of those four losses and he had to get gone (Muschamp went 13-19 over his next three seasons before getting canned there, too).
Is Roper a clear home run hire promotion? No. However, he’s an experienced coordinator who has shown an ability to suit an offense to the strengths of the roster. With C.J. Bailey, he’ll have a talented QB to work with, and one with whom he already has a relationship. That’s a good start. With the talent on hand for 2025, there’s no reason to believe the offense will take a step back under his direction.