Kurt Roper has coached arguably the best quarterbacks in the history of Ole Miss and Duke. He’s also worked with Andre Woodson and Treon Harris.

A career marked in the sideline shadow of David Cutcliffe, first at Tennessee, then at Ole Miss and Duke, Roper is entering his fourth stop at an SEC school as he’s now the co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at South Carolina for his old Florida boss, Will Muschamp.

Roper inherits a quarterback situation that could see as many as five players competing for the job this spring and summer. He gets another chance to show that he can have coaching success without working alongside Cutcliffe.

While Roper hasn’t coached many two-quarterback systems, he admitted to being open to such an alignment when he recently shared his philosophy with The State newspaper. With Perry Orth, Lorenzo Nunez, Connor Mitch, Michael Scarnecchia and Brandon McIlwain, it’s likely that two will share time, if not more in goal-line or special packages.

Orth, who started eight games last year, is the top returning passer. And a position change for Nunez would add some diversity to the offense, if not playing time for others. But Mitch won the job last fall before being injured, and early enrollee McIlwain was a four-star recruit.

“My philosophy on that is I don’t want to put a quarterback in there that’s not capable of throwing the football,” Roper told The State. “So for lack of a better phrase, the Wildcat package, I’m not a big fan of it when it’s a running back and they can’t physically throw the football. That was the world of Darren McFadden and Felix Jones when it all started.”

At Duke, Roper coached QB Thaddeus Lewis, who became the school’s all-time leader in every major statistical passing category and was the second in ACC history to throw for more than 10,000 yards. He led the ACC in total offense in 2009, while throwing for 3,330 yards and 20 touchdowns.

Also with the Blue Devils, Roper coached QB Brandon Connette to becoming the school’s all-time leader in rushing touchdowns, while QB Sean Renfree was the third 3,000-yard passer coached by Roper. That’s why he said his choice on a quarterback starts with situational play.

Added Roper, “Really it develops from some short-yardage, low red zone-type thing and grows from there with what the guy is capable of doing.”

While an athletic running quarterback was successful at Duke under Roper, the same success didn’t follow him to Florida when he started with Jeff Driskel before Roper benched him in 2014 for Treon Harris. Harris in 2014 passed for 1,019 yards with nine TDs and four interceptions, and he added 332 rushing yards and three TDs.

In a January 2014 interview with Foxsports.com, Roper explained that he coaches in a way to be consistent with his quarterbacks and teaches them to be confident in their decision-making, even if a third down play doesn’t work.

“It’s a quarterback-friendly system,” Roper said. “The biggest thing is evaluation. You’ve got to evaluate and get a guy who has talent. You get a guy who has talent and can make the throws and has athleticism, and then I think they become a product of the system.

“… The base principles go right back to that type of decision-making. To me, to help a quarterback to be the best player that he is going to be, you can’t be wishy-washy. You’ve got to tell him, ‘here is what my expectations are, so now let’s go do it.'”

Kurt Roper’s coaching background

1996-98: Tennessee, graduate assistant coach
1999-2001: Mississippi, quarterbacks coach
2002-04: Mississippi, passing game coordinator/quarterbacks coach
2005: Kentucky, quarterbacks coach
2006-07: Tennessee, running backs coach
2008-12: Duke, offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach
2013: Duke, assistant head coach/offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach
2014: Florida, offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach
2015: Cleveland Browns, senior offensive assistant coach
2016: South Carolina, co-offensive coordinator, QBs coach