Kyle Cefalo is an elite position coach.
Eleven years into his professional coaching career he has proven that.
As a wide receivers coach at both Arkansas State and Utah State, Cefalo has helped develop and mentor some elite pass catchers. Guys like Kirk Merritt and Jonathan Adams Jr. at Arkansas State, and Deven Thompkins and Jalen Royals at Utah State.
Both Adams and Thompkins were Biletnikoff Award semifinalists and Royals is a record-breaking receiver at Utah State, with clear NFL potential.
If all Cefalo wound up doing during his coaching career was mentor high level receivers, it would be a successful career.
That is not how things have ended up, though.
Cefalo will be the Aggies’ offensive coordinator this year — offensive line coach Cooper Bassett will be co-offensive coordinator — and he will be calling plays for the first time in his professional career.
Interim head coach Nate Dreiling promoted Cefalo to play calling duties, he said, in an effort to keep the Aggies’ offense elite.
“Offensively, it had been very successful here,” Dreiling said. “My first order as the head coach is to stay out of the offense’s way. And how to do that was promoting Kyle Cefalo to offensive coordinator. Not only is he one of the best recruiters we have on the team, but he has been in the system for 10 plus years and is the brain child of that offense. He is going to have a very exciting year. ... There’s no doubt in my mind that the offense is going to operate like they always have.”
Is Cefalo ready for the job, though?
Last season he was the team’s co-offensive coordinator while Blake Anderson called the plays during games. And before that, Anthony Tucker was USU’s offensive play caller.
Cefalo hasn’t ever called plays in this offensive system, and the Aggies are expecting him to carry over the success that was largely spearheaded by Anderson himself.
If you ask Bassett, who has known Cefalo since the pair were both graduate assistants at Maryland nearly a decade ago, Cefalo is the right man for the job.
“I have full trust in Kyle doing a tremendous job with our offense,” Bassett said.
Bassett’s role as co-offensive coordinator centers on the run game and O-line, leaving everything else on offense to Cefalo. And of course play calling is Cefalo’s burden to bear.
“He has a lot of trust in me coming up with how we want to run the football and how we want to protect the quarterback,” Bassett said. “And then whenever it comes to the RPOs and the passing game and him ultimately choosing what plays are called on Saturday, that is going to go on him. It is going to be really fun, but especially because of our relationship.”
Cefalo is confident he can do the job right. He doesn’t shy away from the responsibility now placed on his shoulders.
But that confidence stems less from within and more from without — the coaches he works with on offense and the players who will run the offense.
“I’m excited. Obviously not the circumstances of how I thought it was going to happen, but it is what I’ve wanted,” Cefalo said. “It has been one of my goals (to be a play caller). I was lucky enough to be the co-offensive coordinator last year and that helped me get even more prepared I feel like.
“I’ve worked really hard to get to this point and I do feel confident. The reasons I feel confident though are our offensive staff is incredible. Everyone is the same and we work so well together. Mostly it is the players we have, though. We have incredible players who have chosen to stay here, on offense especially. A lot of those guys had opportunities to leave and they’ve chosen to stay. They’ve chosen to play for us and play for one another.”
Cefalo teased some changes to the Aggies’ offense, though nothing specific.
“Nothing that I would tell anyone about,” he said with a laugh.
He did acknowledge that he hasn’t made any wholesale changes to the offensive system.
“It will look very similar,” he said.
Cefalo believes in continual improvement, though, and he thinks Utah State is primed to be better than ever this year offensively following some changes made since the end of last season.
“We made some adjustments coming out of last season,” Cefalo said. “We thought we had a great season last year on offense, but felt we still we left a lot out there. There are ways for us to improve. Our offensive philosophy, really through my whole career is constantly move forward and evolve. Don’t sit still. There are always ways to make this thing better and improve it and I felt like we did that during the offseason. I felt great the way we came out of spring. Great summer too.”
Cefalo has managed to convince his players that things will only be for the better.
Royals for his part thinks the ball will be in the air more — which would benefit him.
Running back Rahsul Faison, meanwhile, thinks the system will be more explosive in general, but especially on the ground.
The only certainty is Cefalo is going to call what he feels is best. For the first time in his career, the buck is going to stop at him.
“There might be a few things in there that will look different or unique but at the end of the day, if I’m the one who has to make the final call and the play has to come out of my mouth, it has to be something I really believe in,” he said. " I have to be confident in the play call. The good news is I have incredible people around me and this is our offense. I truly look at it like that.”
