Texas Tech football: 2019 report card for Matt Wells
Decision-making: D
Not knowing anything about Wells when he arrived, it was a surprise to find out how much of a gambler he proved to be. Most fan bases appreciate coaches that take risks (we loved Mike Leach’s propensity for going for it on 4th down, even on his own side of the 50) but those Wells took seemed poorly timed and not worth the potential pay off.
Most of the in-game decisions he made that left us scratching our heads…or throwing the remote…or losing our religion…were on special teams. That was an area of the game that he said upon his arrival that he would have a huge hand in coaching. Yet, that area of the game is where he had the worst track record when it came to decision-making.
Twice, he made the decision to run the same fake field goal play and twice it failed miserably. With 5:52 to play in the first half of the Arizona game and Tech trailing 13-7 and facing a 4th-and-4 and the Wildcat 15, Wells called for a fake field goal in which holder Mark Richardson, a sophomore walk-on wide receiver, tried to follow Connor Killian’s lead block through the line.
The play was blown up in the backfield and Tech came away empty. In a game when the offense struggled to score points, that decision was rather unwise. But at least it made a bit of sense as far as the scoreboard was concerned.
When he tried another fake FG against Oklahoma State, there was no reason for such a gamble. Ahead 27-14 in the third quarter against, Wells ran the exact same play and again it failed. What made that decision odd was that three points would have required OSU to score two touchdowns and two-point conversions to tie the game, which is why taking the FG would have been the wise call.
Or how about the nonsensical fake punt on 4th-and-4 in the second quarter of the Kansas State game. With his team down only 6-3 at the time, it didn’t seem necessary to run a fake punt and there seemed even less logic in asking 300-pound defensive tackle Jaylon Hutchings to be the ball carrier on the play. The only reason that decision wasn’t costly is that KSU missed a FG on the ensuing drive.
But there were other questionable decisions that didn’t involve special teams. He decided to have his offense go for it on 4th-and-2 at the Baylor 17 in the middle of the third quarter with his team down 17-13. That play failed and Tech got no points, which was critical in a game that went to double-OT.
Likewise, his decision to punt when trailing Iowa State by 10 points in the 4th quarter proved to be catastrophic. Facing just a 4th-and-4 at his own 34, Wells kicked the ball away and on the next drive, the Cyclones put the game to bed on a 30-yard TD run.
In all fairness to Wells, any coach has to make hundreds of decisions in a season and even the best will make the wrong call. But the number of times this year that one of his in-game decisions led to a win or a greater shot at a victory were far outnumbered by the number of decisions that backfired.