Texas Tech football: Hocutt can’t afford another football hire miss

As Kirby Hocutt partakes in a one-man search for the next Texas Tech football coach, it must be acknowledged that the two football hires he’s made as an athletic director have been significant disappointments, something that can’t happen this time around.

There is no question that Kirby Hocutt is one of the best collegiate administrators in the nation. While at Texas Tech, he has built one of the most successful athletic departments in the NCAA with five teams reaching the final eight in their respective sport last season. But no one is perfect.

The biggest, and perhaps only, scar on his resume is the fact that he has never hired a successful head football coach during his two decades as an AD. Granted, he has hired only two, Al Golden at Miami and Kliff Kingsbury. But both flamed out for different reasons, something that can’t happen with his third (and most critical) hire.

Hocutt began his career as an AD at Ohio in 2005 where the Bobcats had hired former Nebraska head coach Frank Solich to run their program almost a year before Hocutt arrived. Solich is still at Ohio and has led the Bobcats to nine bowl games since the 2005 season.

At his next stop, Miami, Hocutt had to make a very high-profile hire when he fired Randy Shannon in 2010 after four seasons. Shannon was hired the year before Hocutt arrived but he still received plenty of time to turn the program around. Perhaps the best thing that Shannon did was restore order off the field to what had become one of the most dysfunctional programs in the nation.

The man Hocutt tabbed to lead the Hurricanes was Al Golden, who had engineered one of the biggest rebuilding projects in the nation taking Temple from perennial doormat to nine wins in 2008 and eight wins in 2009.

In retrospect, the Golden era was doomed before it had a chance to begin. A shocking scandal involving a former booster turned convicted felon went public in August of 2011 with details of inappropriate benefits he had provided to Miami athletes over the course of the previous eight years.

That news dropped just weeks before Golden coached his first game in Coral Gables and dominated any discussion about Miami athletics for years to come. What really hurt Golden was suspension of a number of his football players mentioned in the allegations hamstringing a roster already left depleted by his predecessor.

To be fair to Hocutt, the Al Golden search was a circus. Several school officials usurped Hocutt’s authority and everyone from former players to high-profile boosters to powerful university officials took every opportunity to publicly weigh in on what they wanted Hocutt to do.

The process also included the use of a search firm headed by Chuck Neinas, an infamous college football head hunter who had his fingerprints all over the proceedings. At times it felt like Hocutt was not allowed to search for the best coach because everyone with a vested interest wanted the sexiest hire possible, even if it was not the best hire.

Some of the reported candidates included NFL head coach John Gruden, then Georgia head coach Mark Richt (who is ironically now the head coach at Miami), Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen, TCU’s Gary Patterson and two coaches with ties to Texas Tech; Tommy Tuberville and Mike Leach.

Eventually, Hocutt made a hire that did not work out. Golden complied a 32-25 record overall and a 17-18 record in conference play over four-plus seasons. He won seven games just once, in 2013, and never got Miami to the conference title game in an era when many still considered it one of the flagship programs of the ACC.

More from Wreck'Em Red

Less than two years after taking over at Texas Tech, Hocutt had to make another football hire. That search was far more controlled but not without influence from some high-profile administrators, including then chancellor Kent Hance, who were all in favor of Kingsbury.

In what was quite a reversal from the 2010 Miami search, Hocutt focused on only two candidates, Kingsbury and then Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris, who would eventually become the head coach at SMU and just finished his first season at Arkansas.

We all know how the Kingsbury tenure ended but what we do not know is how that will impact the future of the program. Much of that will depend on who Hocutt hires this time. But Texas Tech is in a much better place in a number of key areas including facilities, fan support and public image thanks to the six years Kingsbury was at the helm.

Still, when it comes to Tech’s place in the hierarchy of Big 12 football, the Red Raiders have not been this low since the end of the Spike Dykes era. Once considered to be the third-best program in the conference during the height of the Mike Leach era, Tech is now battling with Baylor and Kansas State to avoid being considered the worst non-KU program in the league.

Kingsbury was a gamble that did not pay off where it mattered the most, in the standings. Kirby Hocutt can’t have that again.

The stakes are too high. Tech football is at a fork in the road. This hire will either take the program back to the adult table of the Big 12 conference or further cement its place at the kids table where each season comes down to a food fight with Kansas, Baylor and Kansas State for the right to play in a third-tier bowl.

It has been ten years since Texas Tech football was relevant. The equity built up during the 2000’s has long been spent. Hocutt has personal equity with Texas Tech fans thanks to the hiring of Chris Beard and Tim Tadlock (and to a lesser extent Tubby Smith). But if this football hire does not pan out, that will quickly evaporate as well.

Hocutt confidently declared in yesterday’s press conference that Texas Tech football will be elite again. For that to come true, he will have to hit a home run with this football coaching hire, which is something he’s yet to do as an athletic director.