Heading into halftime against a Colorado team that won exactly 1 game all season, he had yet to lead the offense past the opposing 35-yard line. One punt return touchdown was the lone score for the visitors. To say this was the way the 32-year-old offensive coordinator wanted to start at his new job would be wildly inaccurate.

But eventually, things worked out just fine for Garrett Riley and TCU.

Riley’s offense took off in the second half to fuel a blowout win at Colorado, which kicked off a run that ended in the College Football Playoff National Championship. Riley helped guide quarterback Max Duggan’s Heisman Trophy runner-up finish. Oh, and Riley earned the Broyles Award as the top assistant coach in America before getting poached by Dabo Swinney with a $1.75 million annual contract.

Consider that a reminder of why we should take it easy with knee-jerk reactions to new coordinator hires.

There are 10 new offensive coordinators in the SEC who’ll make their debuts this weekend. Eight are entering matchups as significant favorites against Group of 5 or FCS competition.

  • Tommy Rees, Alabama — vs. Middle Tennessee
  • Dan Enos, Arkansas — vs. FCS Western Carolina
  • Philip Montgomery, Auburn — vs. UMass
  • Mike Bobo, Georgia — vs. FCS UT Martin
  • Liam Coen, Kentucky — vs. Ball State
  • Kevin Barbay, Mississippi State — vs. FCS SE Louisiana
  • Kirby Moore, Mizzou — vs. FCS South Dakota
  • Dowell Loggains, South Carolina — vs. UNC (in Charlotte)
  • Joey Halzle, Tennessee — vs. Virginia (in Nashville)
  • Bobby Petrino, Texas A&M — vs. New Mexico

None of them will face a single FBS defense that finished in the top 1/3 nationally in scoring in 2022. The lone top-50 defense was No. 49 Virginia, which won 3 games.

What happens in Week 1 won’t necessarily serve as a barometer for how 2023 will play out, good or bad. If Enos or Barbay can’t dial up touchdown drives early against FCS foes, we should remember that even with prolific multi-year starting quarterbacks in KJ Jefferson and Will Rogers, they’re undergoing significant schematic changes and could have some growing pains early.

Alternatively, let’s also remember that if Montgomery and Hugh Freeze carve up Don Brown’s single-high safety defense at UMass, it shouldn’t be treated as a sign that Auburn is destined for imminent offensive improvement. Auburn averaged 51 points in its 2 season-openers under Bryan Harsin. In Weeks 1-2 during his 2 seasons on The Plains, Harsin’s offenses averaged 47 points.

Didn’t matter. At all.

Maybe I shouldn’t say that it “doesn’t matter” because obviously, it’s much better to cruise to a stress-free Week 1 win than not. A season loaded with nothing but close calls will wear on a fan base. Go ask 2022 A&M about that.

But perspective is needed this first week.

College football is unique because it has an 8-month offseason. There’s no official preseason, and because many coaches like to play it coy throughout spring and fall camp, it’s not like we get regular looks at what an offense might look like. Week 1 can provide the ultimate confirmation bias or throw 8 months of offseason storylines out the window.

But even if A&M comes out with the same archaic offense that Jimbo Fisher ran instead of up-tempo, spread concepts with pre-snap motion, it can still be spun in a more positive way for the Aggies.

“Well, you don’t want to show anything ahead of the Miami game. That’s when we’ll really see what this offense looks like.”

Yep. That’s fair.

The same thing could be said about Alabama. What if instead of, as Alabama fans have dubbed it, a return to “joyless murderball,” the Tide come out throwing the ball all over the place against Middle Tennessee? There’s a positive spin for that, too.

“Well, you need to figure out who your starting quarterback is before the Texas game. That’s when we’ll really see what this offense looks like.”

Yep. That’s also fair.

It wouldn’t be surprising if we saw some new OCs crush their debuts while others could overthink theirs. In the “Untold” Johnny Manziel documentary on Netflix, then-Texas A&M offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury admitted that he messed up that Week 1 game against Florida. He put too many parameters on Manziel instead of letting him loose to operate the way he was used to. The rest, of course, was history.

There could be a feeling-out process that’s not really indicative of how this season will play out. Loggains, who might have the most Week 1 pressure of any new SEC offensive coordinator, could experience that a bit with Spencer Rattler. The new South Carolina OC has never called plays at the college level. His debut will be a primetime game against a UNC team that struggled defensively in 2022 but is still plenty talented. If Loggains has a slow start and doesn’t immediately look like an upgrade over the highly scrutinized Marcus Satterfield, it’s not the end of the world.

At the same time, a 50-point South Carolina showing would be encouraging, as long as context as kept in mind. Like, the context that UNC surrendered 61 points to Appalachian State in last year’s opener.

Who was Appalachian State’s OC? Barbay, who will take over the Mississippi State offense in the first regular season game of the post-Mike Leach era. If Barbay’s offense is stuck in neutral against SE Louisiana, you could hear a lot of the outside skepticism about Mississippi State’s offense surface. Would that be fair to Barbay? Nope, especially in Game No. 1 transitioning from one the most unique offenses in the sport. But 8 months of confirmation bias could come to a head for some.

Hopefully for others, Week 1 won’t prompt too many offensive overreactions. That’s probably a difficult thing to ask for. After all, we’re now living in a world in which the majority of these new SEC offensive coordinators are making at least $1 million annually. There’s more pressure on them than ever.

Let’s just maybe not call for any of their jobs until October.