Texas Tech football: Kirby Hocutt gives update on search for new coach

Wednesday, Texas Tech Athletic Director appeared on his weekly radio show to discuss the status of the program’s search for a new head football coach.

The most important man at Texas Tech University, Kirby Hocutt, took to the airwaves Wednesday to update the search for a new head football coach.  On the weekly Kirby Hocutt Show on KTTU FM Double T 97.3 in Lubbock, Hocutt spoke publicly for the first time since Sunday afternoon’s press conference to announce the firing of Kliff Kingsbury.

"“It’s fluid,” he said when asked about a potential time frame for announcing his choice.  “There’s a lot of conversations that are taking place.  There’s a lot of visits that are taking place and we are going to continue to manage this hour-by-hour and day by day… As quickly as we can expedite this and move it forward we will.“However, I’ve been doing this long enough to know that there could be obstacles in front of us.  If we face that, we will step back, we will reset and we will not stop until we are 100% confident that we are in the best position to move forward.”"

The main reason people are concerned with the time frame is the impending December 19-21 early signing period for high school recruits.  The new coach will have to build relationships with the 19 players that are already committed to Texas Tech in order to keep as many as possible on board.

But that should not be an excuse to hurry the process.  it would be better for Texas Tech to take its time and make certain that it has explored every option before making a decision of this magnitude.  When Kliff Kingsbury was hired in 2012, the search took approximately five days and there were only two candidates (Kingsbury and Chad Morris).  There are reportedly far more candidates this time around so it would make sense for this process to take longer to be resolved.

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Hocutt would go on to share that some candidates have been removed from the search but he did not elaborate further.  It would make sense to assume that Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables would fall into that category after he said yesterday that was not “actively pursuing” the Texas Tech job.

Hocutt was then asked whether everyone he is currently considering is a head coach or a coordinator.  He said that was accurate and that he is looking for someone that has been successful at those levels.

When the question of donor influence was brought up, Hocutt gave a very politically correct answer.

"“Everybody wants the same thing; for Texas Tech to win and win the right way and be relevant” he said.  “People care.  There are individuals that contribute to our program in a lot of ways.  Some through their generosity in financial capacities, some through season ticket purchases…everybody matters and we’re fortunate that we have the support from the Red Raider nation like we do and I appreciate everybody’s opinions and thoughts.”"

While we can appreciate the spirit of what Hocutt is saying, there is no question that the high-profile boosters will play a role.  Numerous reports such as this one from Lubbock media personality Jay Leeson have suggested that some well-connected donors have been angling to bring former head coach Mike Leach back from Washington State.  However, there appears to be more at play concerning Leach than just money and trying to convince him to leave a top-10 team to return to a school that he once sued seems to be a fairy tale at best.

Finally, Hocutt was asked if he wants an offensive or defensive head coach.  That is a point of great interest to Texas Tech football fans who have come to love the program’s identity as a pioneer of the games offensive revolution but who are also tired of repeatedly being unable to field representable defenses.

"“I want a head coach,” Hocutt said.  “I want a head coach who’s going to come in and set the vision for this program and surround themselves with the best possible staff they can.  We all know, you are only going to be as successful as the people that you have around you.  So we need a head coach to come in, to set that vision and to surround themselves with an extremely talented staff…”"

The importance of the assistant coaching staff has become more evident to Texas Tech football fans since the start of the Kingsbury era in 2013.  One of the biggest hindrances to Kingsbury was the fact that he made numerous mistakes, especially early on, with his assistant coaching hires.

Given one of the lowest assistant coaching salary pools in the Big 12 to work with, Kingsbury outfitted his initial staff with primarily 30-something-year-old former Texas Tech players who may have been long on energy and swagger but were short on experience and that hurt the overall health of the program.

Of course, the biggest mistake of Kingsbury’s career was hiring former Texas A&M linebacker’s coach Matt Wallersteadt to be his first defensive coordinator.  Wallersteadt did not make it past the fourth week of his second season on the job before being fired for off-field reasons.  That disaster of a hire set the defense back significantly and was the main reason that Texas Tech fielded the second-worst defense in the nation in 2015 and the worst in 2016.

Ultimately, Hocutt did not tip his hand or break any news Wednesday, as expected.  But given the incredibly secret nature of this process, it was nice for us to get a bit of an update from the man who holds the future of the Texas Tech football program in his hands.