Was win over OSU enough to move Kliff Kingsbury off hot seat?

Texas Tech football head coach Kliff Kingsbury picked up the biggest win of his career Saturday night beating Oklahoma State 41-17 in Stillwater. But was that signature victory enough to move him off the hot seat?

Throughout the 2018 offseason, Texas Tech football fans could not avoid the droves of articles about Kliff Kingsbury being one of the college football coaches on the hot seat. Entering the season with a 30-33 overall record and a 16-29 record in Big 12 games left the sixth-year head coach little margin for error this season.

And after a rocky start that came by way of a 47-27 loss to Ole Miss, a huge potion of the Texas Tech football fanbase began speculating about which up-and-coming head coach would be best to replace Kingsbury. After that embarrassing performance, even the most ardent Kingsbury supporters were skeptical about his long-term prospects in Lubbock.

In fact, prior to the Houston game, SaturdayBlitz.com listed Kliff Kingsbury as the coach most in need of a win in week three. And that is what Kingsbury delivered with a nice 63-49 win but still, he remained squarely on the hot seat as he faced a three-game stretch against ranked opponents to begin Big 12 play.

One week later, Kingsbury is almost completely off the hot seat according to most media outlets. CoachesHotSeat.com ranks the hot seat status of every coach in the nation and as you might expect, Kingsbury has been near the top of their list all year.

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But Kingsbury is in a much better place now checking in at No. 30 overall, the last coach on the list to be labeled as being on the hot seat. That is an improvement of 13 places from the previous week and a 27-spot improvement from the first week of the season.

Still, it is fair to wonder whether one game can cement Kingsbury’s job status at Texas Tech. The answer is convoluted because Saturday’s win carried more weight than almost any win on the 2018 schedule could.

Aside from beating the Longhorns in Lubbock on senior day, Texas Tech fans as a whole would have rather beaten Oklahoma State than any other opponent on the schedule. The rivalry with the Cowboys has always been rather underrated as both schools are so similar in culture, status and traditions.

Plus, the 9-game losing streak to OSU made Red Raider fans tired of being dominated by a program that they used to consider inferior. Certainly, knocking off West Virginia this week would be huge because they are the No. 12 team in the nation and beating TCU or Baylor would be huge because they are in-state rivals but those wins would not carry the weight that finally beating the Cowboys did.

Ultimately, Kingsbury’s job is still not completely safe. Texas Tech must reach a bowl game if Kingsbury is to be retained for season seven.

Fortunately, that prospect seems far more likely with a win over Oklahoma State which virtually everyone had chalked up as a loss prior to Saturday. And if true freshman Alan Bowman continues his meteoric rise to stardom, there is no reason to think that Kingsbury can’t find at least three more wins this year (though Texas Tech fans now expect much more than a 6-6 record).

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Kliff Kingsbury will not be off completely off of the hot seat until he wins a few more games. But after the dominating win over the Cowboys, the flames around the program seem to have been all but extinguished.

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