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Texas Tech Football: Is Kliff Kingsbury more than a one-hit wonder?

ByJoey Ciccarello|

After a successful start to his tenure as the head coach at Texas Tech, can Red Raiders head coach Kliff Kingsbury prove he has what it takes to be a successful coach in the Big 12?

Usually, when one is compared to a celebrity such as Ryan Gosling, it is the best thing that can happen. In Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury’s case, however, it is not the thing that he wants to be recognized for. As Kingsbury enters a do-or-die 2015 season, he hopes to shed not only this label, but many other labels and misconceptions that have surrounded the Red Raiders football team since game eight of the 2014 season.

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To truly understand how severe Kingsbury’s tailspin has been, let’s flash back all the way to October 26, 2013. Texas Tech, ranked 10th in the country, was coming off a 37-27 road victory over West Virginia, extending their season-opening winning streak to seven games.

Kingsbury’s stock had never been higher, of course; his early success at Tech was a perfect follow-up to a 2012 season in which he was Johnny Manziel’s offensive coordinator at Texas A&M. A win over No. 17 Oklahoma, in Norman nonetheless, would further the frenzy in Lubbock and confirm what had been an already impressive head coaching debut for the 34-year old Texas Tech alumni.

Flash ahead to today: the Red Raiders fell 38-30 at Oklahoma, and they’ve never been the same since. Kingsbury has lost 13 out of his last 18 games as a head coach, including the last five regular season games in 2013. Sure, there have been flashes of hope; the play of young quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes and Davis Webb, a Holiday Bowl victory in 2013, and a hard-fought loss to Baylor at AT&T Stadium to end last season.

Related: Texas Tech Season Preview and Prediction

The unsettling reality, however, is that these seem like simple flashes in the pan, and not steps towards sustained success.

First and foremost, the main issue facing Kingsbury in Lubbock is his defense. After allowing 48.6 points per game during 2013’s five-game losing streak, the Red Raiders allowed 41.2 points per game and 513.4 yards of offense in 2014.

The tipping point may have come in an 82-27 loss to TCU last year, a game in which TCU racked up 785 total yards of offense en route to the most embarrassing loss of the Kingsbury era. If Kingsbury wants to prove that he can sustain success at Texas Tech, a defensive turnaround, led by new co-coordinator David Gibbs, is a must in 2015.

On top of that, Tech needs a signature win. In 2013, their four conference wins came over the four teams that finished behind them in the Big 12 standings: TCU, Kansas, Iowa State, and West Virginia. None of those teams finished with winning records; in fact, the combined record of those teams was a putrid 14-34. Last season, they beat two-win Kansas and two-win Iowa State, only to lose to the seven teams that finished higher than them in the Big 12 standings.

Out of conference, the Red Raiders have been unimpressive as well. In 2013, Tech went 3-0 against cream puffs SMU, Stephen F. Austin, and Texas State. Last year, they struggled to beat FCS opponent Central Arkansas (42-35) and UTEP (30-26) before getting the doors blown off of them in a 49-28 home loss to Arkansas.

In short, Kingsbury must use 2015 to prove that the first seven games of his coaching career were more than just lightning in a bottle. He certainly has a solid base of talent, led by either Mahomes or Webb at quarterback. No one is suggesting that Texas Tech will be a 10-win team; I am suggesting, however, that a six or seven-win season may be what Kingsbury needs to salvage his job, and his reputation as a viable head coach in the Big 12.

Next: Top 10 Coaches on the Hot Seat Entering 2015

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