Pine-Richland grad guides Cardinals to win
Two days before playing a game on the other side of the country, the NFL’s only undefeated team found out that it would be without its head coach, who tested positive for COVID-19.
So who did the Arizona Cardinals, minus Kliff Kingsbury, call on to handle the play-calling duties for their Oct. 17 game at Cleveland?
None other than a 32year-old assistant who was once a quarterback at PineRichland High School.
To Kingsbury, Spencer Whipple was the perfect choice.
Whipple is a 2007 PineRichland graduate who is in his third season on Arizona’s coaching staff. He spent a season as an offensive quality control coach before being promoted to assistant wide receivers coach last season.
“For me, it’s a position I’d like to aspire to be in someday full time,” Whipple said. “I just felt like I was here now. I had a really big opportunity. There wasn’t really much time to be nervous. It was just to go out and communicate and let the players play and the staff do their job.”
Like father, like son. You’re likely familiar with Whipple’s dad, Mark, who is having an outstanding season as Pitt’s offensive coordinator. The Panthers are 6-1, ranked No. 17 in the country and boast the No. 4 scoring offense in the FBS. Mark was the Steelers quarterback coach when Spencer was in high school. Spencer’s first coaching job was as a graduate assistant at Pitt in 2012 and 2013.
Spencer Whipple said that going into the Cleveland game, Kingsbury gave him these words of advice — “Let it rip.” Whipple received a similar message from his dad, who helped guide Pitt to a 28- 7 win against Virginia Tech a day earlier.
“His advice to me was just, ‘Just go do it,’” Spencer Whipple recalls. “He didn’t say too much. He said, ‘You’ll be great. Just trust it, don’t overthink it, and just let it roll.’”
Whipple did just that his senior season at Pine-Richland. In his only season as a varsity starter, Whipple led the Rams to a conference title and to the WPIAL Class 3A semifinals, where they lost to Blackhawk. The Rams finished 11- 1 and Whipple was named to the Post-Gazette’s North Fabulous 22 team after completing 107 of 187 passes for 1,469 yards and 11 touchdowns.
In college, Whipple spent time as a backup quarterback and holder while making stops at Pitt, UMass and Miami, when his dad was the Hurricanes’ offensive coordinator.
After spending two seasons as a graduate assistant at Pitt, Whipple spent five seasons at UMass, where he started as a tight ends coach and was eventually elevated to wide receivers coach and then passing game coordinator/quarterbacks coach.
Prior to the Arizona-Cleveland game, Whipple’s only experience calling plays in a game came during his final season at UMass in 2018. UMass fell to South Florida, 58-42, in that game, an experience he drew from two weekends ago.
“I learned that day just as I did on Sunday on things that I would have done differently and could have done better,” he said. “I think just taking those learning experiences forward with me had helped.”
Of course, the personnel Whipple has in Arizona is a few steps up from what he had at UMass. Former Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray is emerging as one of the NFL’s top quarterbacks, and the Cardinals also feature the likes of DeAndre Hopkins, Christian Kirk and former Pitt and Steelers standout James Conner.
“Kyler makes it easy to call plays, that’s for sure,” said Whipple.
Murray dazzled against the Browns, completing 20 of 30 passes for 229 yards and four touchdowns, two of which went to Hopkins, in Arizona’s 37-14 win that improved the Cardinals to 6-0. The Cardinals scored on all five of their possessions in the first half and did not commit any turnovers in the game.
“The operation was very smooth, being on the road for us to not have coach Kliff,” Murray told reporters afterward. “Whipp kept calling it aggressively and we got it going.”
Whipple said that everything pretty much went according to the plan the coaching staff had put in place the week leading up to the game.
“It was a great plan, just what we needed,” he said, “and so it was just a matter of getting those calls that Coach and the staff had come up with to Kyler, and then the players executing them, which they did. I think as the game went along, I got more comfortable with the whole process and how things were going to work. Like I did the first time around, I learned some things and wished I did some things differently, but that’s just part of the process.”
After the win, Whipple’s cell phone was a bit busier than it normally is after games.
“A lot of people reached out, which was great,” he said. “It was just great to talk to some people I haven’t talked to in a while. Some close friends that keep in touch were watching it. Everyone was excited.”
A few days later, Kingsbury was cleared to return to the team, meaning he once again called the plays in Arizona’s 31- 5 win against Houston.
Chances are Whipple won’t be the play- caller again this season, but it wouldn’t be a shock if he follows in his dad’s footsteps and becomes an offensive coordinator in the not-sodistant future.