Wreck'Em Red
Fansided

Texas Tech football: Matt Wells ranked lowest Big 12 coach by Sporting News

By Matthew Conner

EAST LANSING, MI - AUGUST 31: Head coach Matt Wells of the Utah State Aggies looks on while playing the Michigan State Spartans at Spartan Stadium on August 31, 2018 in East Lansing, Michigan. Michigan State won the game 38-31. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
EAST LANSING, MI - AUGUST 31: Head coach Matt Wells of the Utah State Aggies looks on while playing the Michigan State Spartans at Spartan Stadium on August 31, 2018 in East Lansing, Michigan. Michigan State won the game 38-31. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

New Texas Tech football head coach Matt Wells is the lowest ranked Big 12 coach in new poll from “SportingNews.com”.  Is he being overlooked?

In a recently released ranking of all 130 college football head coaches, Texas Tech football fans have to scroll farther down the list than any other fan base in the Big 12 to find their head coach.  First year Red Raider head coach Matt Wells checks in at No. 76 on the list, 23 spots higher than he was ranked on last year’s list but behind every other Big 12 coach.

Not surprisingly, Alabama’s Nick Saban comes in at No. 1 with Clemson’s Dabo Swinney at No. 2.  Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M, Kirby Smart of Georgia and Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma round out the top-5.  As for the other Big 12 coaches, you can find Texas’ Tom Herman at No. 9, TCU’s Gary Patterson at No. 12, Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy at No. 20, Iowa State’s Matt Campbell at No. 23, West Virginia’s Neal Brown at No. 26, Kansas’ Les Miles at No. 30, Baylor’s Matt Rhule at No. 41 and Kansas State’s Chris Klieman at No. 70.

So all but two Big 12 head coaches, Wells and Kleiman, are considered to be among the 50 best coaches in the nation.  And looking at the criteria for this poll could explain why.  But it also raises some questions.

The first data point Sporting News lists is career accomplishments.  And in this area, Wells pales in comparison to his Big 12 counterparts.  Miles has won a national title with LSU in 2007 while Klieman has captured four FCS titles (2014, 2015, 2017, 2018) at North Dakota State.  And Riley has taken OU to the playoff in each of the past two years.

What’ more, Wells, Herman and Campbell are the only coaches in the conference to have never won a conference title in any league.  Wells took Utah State to the Mountain West title game in 2013 while Herman guided the Longhorns to last season’s Big 12 title game.  Naturally, getting to the championship game of the Big 12 carries more weight, as does the Sugar Bowl victory Herman brought home over Georgia last season, which makes his much higher ranking logical.  And Campbell twice took Toledo to the MAC title game in 2014 and 2015.

But what is puzzling about this ranking’s logic is that the author, Bill Bender, says that recent accomplishments were taken into consideration.  That makes it hard to understand why Les Miles comes in at No. 30.  Miles’ last conference title came in 2011 and his most recent accomplishment as a head coach was being fired by LSU after a 2-2 start to the 2016 season.

More from Wreck'Em Red

And if recent accomplishments matter, it is hard to comprehend why North Carolina’s Mack Brown comes in at No. 24 after being out of the game for five years.  But Bender points out that Brown is one of just five active coaches with a national title as support for the 67-year-old’s lofty ranking.

And maybe Wells’ 10-2 season last year at Utah State gave him a boost in the recency department and was a reason for his jump in this year’s ranking.  Coming on the heels of three straight losing seasons, Wells rebounded nicely last year by coming within one win of a conference title game appearance.

Of course, some subjectivity always comes into play in these type of rankings.  Bender says that when the decision between coaches was tight, the nod went to the coach they wold take in a head-to-head matchup.

Thus, it appears that Sporting News would take Toledo’s Jason Candle (No. 75), Rick Stockstill of Middle Tennessee (No. 74), Navy’s Ken Niumatalolo (No. 73) and Jonathan Smith of Oregon State (No. 72) over Wells in a head-to-head matchup.  That is a bit surprising given how highly-regarded Wells seems to be in coaching circles.

If this ranking revels anything to us, it is that Kirby Hocutt has more faith in Wells than most around the country do.  And that’s fine.  Hocutt did the research, interviewed his candidates and made the choice that he feels is the right fit for Texas Tech.

For those wondering, where some other coaches linked to last fall’s Texas Tech opening came in on the list, Houston’s Dana Holgorsen is at No. 56 and North Texas’ Seth Littrell was just behind Wells at No. 77.  And just for reference, last year, Kliff Kingsbury checked in at No. 63, somehow 13 spots ahead of Wells ranks this year.

Next. Positions that might take a step back in 2019. dark

Ultimately, Wells appears to have taken on the role of the overlooked underdog, which falls in line with his new program’s usual position in the Big 12 hierarchy.  Hopefully both he and his team will climb up the rankings and make people take notice this year.  If noting else, we should hope that next year, Wells is ahead of at least one of his conference colleagues.

Home/Texas Tech Football