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Texas Tech football adds OU assistant Kerry Cooks to coach safeties

By Matthew Conner

LUBBOCK, TX - NOVEMBER 03: Grant Calcaterra #80 of the Oklahoma Sooners takes a hard hit from Vaughnte Dorsey #15 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders during the first half of the game on November 3, 2018 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TX - NOVEMBER 03: Grant Calcaterra #80 of the Oklahoma Sooners takes a hard hit from Vaughnte Dorsey #15 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders during the first half of the game on November 3, 2018 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images) /
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Texas Tech football head coach Matt Wells has completed his assistant coaching staff by adding former OU assistant coach Kerry Cooks.

The team that finished the 2018 season ranked second-to-last in the nation against the pass is turning to an unexpected place to help remedy that problem.  Friday, the Texas Tech football team hired Oklahoma defensive backs coach Kerry Cooks to coach the Red Raider safeties despite the fact that the Sooners were the only team in the nation in 2018 that gave up more passing yards than the Red Raiders.

According to Cooks’ bio at the official Oklahoma football page, the long-time college assistant joined the OU coaching staff in 2015.  A former All-Big 10 safety at Iowa in 1997, Cooks has had coaching stops at Notre Dame (2010-14), Wisconsin (2006-09), Minnesota (2005), Western Illinois (2004) and Kansas State (2003).

Perhaps the shake-up with the Oklahoma defensive staff led Cooks to seek a new opportunity with the Red Raiders.  Sooner head coach Lincoln Riley has hired former Ohio State defensive coordinator Alex Grinch as his new defensive coordinator after promoting Ruffin McNeil to interim DC mid-season to replace the fired Mike Stoops.

Texas Tech needs Cooks to continue to be an ace recruiter.  In 2017, he was named the 247Sports Big 12 recruiter of the year.  In that recruiting cycle, he landed a 5-star safety and two 4-star corners but of course, recruiting to Norman is quite a bit easier than recruiting to Lubbock.

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Tech certainly needs to add talent in the defensive backfield however.  After losing two standout safeties in Jah’Shawn Johnson and Vaughnte Dorsey as well as the versatile John Bonney (a 2018 graduate transfer from Texas), Tech is going to be looking for answers in the secondary.

Currently, there are no safeties in the Texas Tech 2019 recruiting class which features just one current signee or commit in the secondary.  Certainly, Cooks has his work cut out for him both on the recruiting trail and on the practice field.

The final member of Wells staff, Cooks’ profile fits with the rest of the assistants to join the new Texas Tech coaching staff.  Whereas many schools are trending towards bringing in successful Texas high school football coaches to help in recruiting, Wells has focused on hiring coaches with significant experience at the collegiate level.

Virtually all of the new offensive staff was at Utah State with Wells last year and every defensive assistant was at an FBS program in 2018.  Perhaps this experience will help the Red Raiders finally put to rest their propensity for being one of the most penalized teams in the nation.

Last year, Tech finished 125th overall in the nation in penalty yardage at 74.2 per game.  Only five teams in the nation were more heavily penalized.

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With a full staff in place, the Red Raider coaches can now hit the recruiting trail in full force.  Tech needs to add help along the offensive and defensive lines, at running back and in the secondary.  Hopefully, that is where Kerry Cooks can pay immediate dividends.

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