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Why Texas Tech football hasn’t seen recruiting bump under Matt Wells

By Matthew Conner

LAS VEGAS, NV - NOVEMBER 09: Head coach Matt Wells of the Utah State Aggies watches his team warm up before their game against the UNLV Rebels at Sam Boyd Stadium on November 9, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Utah State won 28-24. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS, NV - NOVEMBER 09: Head coach Matt Wells of the Utah State Aggies watches his team warm up before their game against the UNLV Rebels at Sam Boyd Stadium on November 9, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Utah State won 28-24. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by Loren Orr/Getty Images)
(Photo by Loren Orr/Getty Images) /

Matt Wells is not a coach that carries a lot of panache with recruits

Another factor that helps bring immediate recruiting improvements is the weight of the head coach’s name.  When a big-time coach takes over a new program, recruits often flock to that school because they want to be part of the latest and greatest sensation.

But in hiring Matt Wells, Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt made a calculated decision to hire the man he believes to be one of the best rising football coaches and program builders in the nation rather than a coach with a sexy name.  That decision might pan out to be the correct one but it is not going to yield immediate results on the recruiting trail like we have seen with some bigger names that have recently changed schools.

The most obvious example is in College Station where Texas A&M lured Jimbo Fisher away from Florida State after the 2017 season.  Since then, A&M has had the No. 17 class in 2018 and the No. 4 class in 2019.

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Likewise, in 2008, Alabama’s recruiting class jumped from No. 12 in the nation the previous season to No. 3 overall in the first full recruiting cycle of the Nick Saban era when he returned from a stint in the NFL.  And in Austin, Tom Herman landed the No. 3 class in the nation in 2018 after singing the No. 25 overall class the year prior after gaining national notoriety as the offensive coordinator at Ohio State and was viewed as the genius du jour in the sport.

But Matt Wells doesn’t carry the same type of weight in college football that those coaches do.  After all, almost no Red Raider fan knew his name until Kingsbury was fired and Wells emerged as a candidate.  So it is hard to imaging there being a huge number of highly-touted recruits across the country chomping at the bit to jump on the Matt Wells train before it has even really left the station.

Unlike Jimbo Fisher, who came to A&M already with a national title on his resume, Wells does not even have a conference title from his six years in the Mountain West to point too.  And even if he did, would any top-250 recruit care?

Prior to Wells’ arrival in Lubbock, if you would have put a picture of him in front of the top 200 college football recruits in Texas, would 10% have known that was even a college football coach at all?  Likely not.  So to expect an up-and-coming coach from a Group of 5 conference to generate the same type of instant buzz as a big-name head coach or highly-touted assistant (like Herman, Kirby Smart at Georgia or Many Diaz at Miami) will only lead to disappointment.

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Eventually, Wells may bring recruiting success to Texas Tech but it will take some time.  Until then, he is going to have to win the old fashioned way, by maximizing the talent he already has on campus.

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