Texas Tech Football: 5 Fixes Matt Wells’ must make in first season
Under new head coach Matt Wells, Texas Tech football will be looking to break their string of three straight losing seasons. What do they have to fix to make that happen in 2019?
Expectations were meager for Texas Tech in 2018, but a winning season was a must if Kliff Kingsbury was going to maintain his post as the team’s head coach.
Coming into the year, the Red Raiders had suffered two losing seasons ins a row, and three of the five years Kingsbury had roamed the sideline resulted in sub .500 seasons.
Things appeared to be looking up in 2018 as Kingsbury turned the reins over to freshman QB Alan Bowman, a signal-caller tailor-made for the air-raid offense. Bowman helped lead Tech to a surprising 5-2 start that put them in contention in the Big 12 race.
From there, some unfortunate injury luck with Bowman, offensive ineptitude, undisciplined play, and paltry defensive efforts combined together to send the Red Raiders’ season spiraling downward. Needing only one win over the final five games to reach bowl eligibility, Tech instead lost out to miss a bowl for the second time in three years.
Three straight single-digit defeats to Iowa State, Oklahoma, and Texas were tough to get angry about, but the team bottomed out in defeats to Kansas State and Baylor to finish the season, managing a combined 30 points in the two losses.
The five straight defeats to finish the season ultimately cost beloved native son Kingsbury his job. After a one month stint as USC’s offensive coordinator, Kingsbury was surprisingly hired by the Arizona Cardinals to be their next head coach in an all-time fail upward move.
With some powers-that-be at Tech pushing for the likes of Mike Leach and Dana Holgorsen, fans were a bit disappointed in the hiring of Utah State’s Matt Wells to replace Kingsbury in Lubbock. Wells had a rough three year stretch in the middle of his tenure in Logan where the Aggies managed just a 15-23 mark. In his other three seasons, however, Utah State went 29-11, including a 10-2 mark in 2018.
There will be some changes in Lubbock as Wells doesn’t run the air-raid, but his balanced spread attack has been lethal in the Mountain West. Most importantly, Wells will field a defense that will be disciplined and fill their gaps.
In 2018, Utah State ranked 21st in offensive S&P+ and 36th in defensive S&P+. Texas Tech ranked 22nd in offensive S&P+ and 87th in defensive S&P+.
There’s plenty of offensive talent on the roster in Lubbock; if Wells can balance that with a average to slightly above average defense next season, then the Red Raiders could be in line for a big jump up the standings.
Let’s take a look at five things Wells must fix in order to get Texas Tech back to at least a bowl game in 2019 and possibly beyond: