Texas Tech football: How 10 men contributed to decline of Red Raider football

Tommy Tuberville

Over the past decade, it seems like Texas Tech football fans have seldom been able to agree on much.  Since the firing of Mike Leach, it seems like the only harmony within the fan base came in the first three years of the Kingsbury era when Tech’s favorite son was still in his honeymoon phase.

But if there is one thing we can all agree upon as Red Raiders, it is that we hate Tommy Tuberville. We hate him as much as cotton farmers hate boll weevils, cats hate water and kids hate bedtime.

That’s because Tuberville came to Lubbock and proved himself to be nothing but a carpet-bagging charlatan from SEC country looking only to pad his bank account before his earning potential as a football coach had completely dried up.  He had no regard for the good of Texas Tech football, only for the good of his own name.

Often lost in the Tuberville narrative is the fact that he reached out to Red Raider officials about the open position only to later portray himself as someone who was unfairly jettisoned to Lubbock almost as if serving out some cosmic punishment.

"“You run me off at Auburn and you ship me to Lubbock, Texas,” Tuberville said in 2017, according to 247Sports. “I’m going to tell you what, that’s like going to Siberia. Somebody asked me, ‘What’s Lubbock look like?’ It looked like Iraq.”"

Tuberville was not “shipped” to Lubbock.  He went willingly.  He even asked for the opportunity.

But not even half a year into his tenure, he was already starting to complain about ancillary factors such as the wind.  And during his three seasons, he would go on to complain about the lack of an indoor facility, the fan base and the city of Lubbock to the point that everyone around town knew how unhappy he was.

That is a terrible tone for a leader to set.  Imagine Bear Bryant complaining about the humidity in Tuscaloosa or Bill Belichick complaining about the cold in Foxborough.

Tuberville never really wanted the Texas Tech football job.  He wanted Texas Tech’s money.  When he found out that building a winner in Lubbock is a challenge, he had no stomach for the fight.

And when he snuck out of town after only three years on the job, just one day after telling Tech AD Kirby Hocutt how dedicated he was to Red Raider football, he cemented his legacy as the most hated man in West Texas.  Not only did he serve to diminish the product on the field (his 2011 team was the first Tech team to fail to teach bowl eligibility since prior to the inception of the Big 12 in 1996) but his discordant relationship with the fan base and the community created a chasm in the program that had long-lasting ramifications and set the course for another poor head coach hiring.