Texas Tech football: Matt Wells drops in CBS coach rankings

After a 4-8 debut, Texas Tech football head coach Matt Wells has fallen eight places in the updated CBS rankings of the nation’s football coaches.

It is the summer and that means it is list season for college sports fans. One interesting ranking that was recently released is the CBS Sports list of head coaches and as you might expect after last season, Texas Tech football head coach Matt Wells took a tumble from where he was on last year’s rankings.

On the heels of a disappointing 4-8 season in 2019, Tech’s leader now sits at No. 51 on the list, eight spots below where he was slotted last year at this time. But the author of the piece, Tom Fornelli, allows for the possibility that Wells might not be getting a fair shake.

"“This is a compelling case” he writes. “Wells was ranked No. 43 last season after leaving Utah State for Texas Tech. Now, after 4-8 season at Tech, he dropped eight spots to No. 51. We could all be treating Wells a little too harshly upon reflection.”"

Certainly, Wells’ status has sustained some damage after his first year in Lubbock. When he was hired to replace Kliff Kingsbury, he was considered one of the best up and coming coaches in the industry after guiding Utah State to a 10-2 season.

But should he be penalized for his first year in Lubbock given that many head coaches struggle in their “transition years” at new programs? As you might expect, the answer to that question is up to the individual.

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On the one hand, Tech fans may believe that he was fighting an uphill battle given the fact that his roster was left woefully thin and devoid of the type of talent that is required to compete in a Power 5 conference. Years of poor recruiting on behalf of the Kingsbury regime had depleted the program of quality depth and that resulted in numerous second-half collapses.

What’s more, Wells was dealt a rather tough blow when his starting QB, Alan Bowman, was lost for the year with a shoulder injury after the third game of the year. Being as Wells has said that the Bowman’s presence on the roster was what made him believe that the rebuilding job in Lubbock was going to be more of a “reload”, Bowman’s loss was without question a turn that impacted what Wells and OC David Yost could do offensively in 2019.

However, the other segment of the fandom, the rather vocal anti-Wells contingency, is frustrated by the fact that Wells couldn’t coach his team to victory in a number of games that were there for the taking in the final minutes. Tech lost one-score games against Baylor, TCU, and Kansas State and in all three games, there were moments when the Red Raiders simply did not make the plays required to win (even in the Baylor game, which was lost because of a Big 12 officiating blunder, Tech had an opportunity to win the game with one stop at the end of regulation but couldn’t).

But what is undeniable is the fact that the perception of Wells is not what it was a year ago. In fact, he’s ranked behind the three other Big 12 head coaches to take over new teams in 2019.

Kansas State’s Chris Klieman sits at No. 42 after an impressive 8-5 season. Meanwhile, Les Miles at Kansas is just one spot behind him at No. 43. As for West Virginia’s Neal Brown, who some Red Raider fans had hoped would get the Tech job, the former Red Raider offensive coordinator under Tommy Tuberville is at No. 47.

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Of course, a winning record in 2020 could send Wells climbing back up this ranking in one year’s time. That’s the nature of polls and lists, which are items we had better get used to seeing now that we’ve begun a summer in which we don’t know when live sports will return in full.

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