Sonny Cumbie is the new offensive coordinator for the Texas Tech football program so let’s take a look at some important things to know about his work at TCU.
Matt Wells did something important when he hired Sonny Cumbie to be his next offensive coordinator…he embraced Texas Tech’s “Air Raid” identity. That move has garnered the embattled and unpopular head coach about as much goodwill as he could have earned by hiring anyone to replace David Yost.
There’s no denying that over the past two years, this program lost a huge part of its identity under Yost. For almost 20 years, Red Raider fans came to love being associated with the “Air Raid” offensive system, and though no one in the post-Mike Leach era of Texas Tech football has run that offense in its purest form, every man who was in charge of the offense between Leach and Yost incorporated enough principles of that scheme to keep Red Raider football exciting and wide-open.
But Yost managed to kill the only identity this program has had in the post-Spike Dykes era. His stubborn and nearly religious devotion to 11 personnel (1 running back and 1 tight end on the field) was limited in that it made Tech painfully predictable and that it prevented the offense from flooding the field with as many dangerous offensive weapons as possible.
As a result, this program lost what made it so popular, it’s offensive dominance. Now, the hope is that Cumbie, who played QB under Leach and who coached under Kliff Kingsbury for a season, will bring some of that “Air Raid” pride back to Lubbock.
Again, short of being able to bring back Graham Harrell to run the offense (a dream that was never going to come to fruition given that he’s not leaving his OC position at USC to come to Tech for any job other than head coach) no possible name that Wells could have settled on would have excited the fan base as much as Cumbie. And let’s not kid ourselves, that had to be a factor in this decision.
Wells will never admit that. He’ll always portray this as simply a football move. But any discerning fan can realize that a head coach whose popularity with the fan base is at an all-time low needed to generate some buzz and goodwill with his constituency.
HIring another candidate like SMU OC Garrett Riley or San Jose State OC Kevin McGiven (who was Wells’ OC at Utah State in 2013-14) might have made as much football sense as hiring Cumbie does. But those moves wouldn’t have moved the needle as much around West Texas as bringing back a native son to help resurrect this program’s lost identity.
Many Red Raiders will always see Wells as an outsider. And when he was hired, he brought most of his staff from Utah State, coaches the average Tech fan had never heard of, with him. Granted, he did hire Tech alum Joel Filani to be wide receivers coach but that’s not ever going to carry the type of weight as being a coordinator does for obvious reasons.
But now, Wells has turned to a Red Raider to help him save his job and that means something to a huge swatch of the fan base. It is the most important hire of Wells’ career as a head coach because it could make or break his tenure with the Red Raiders as he enters 2021 on the hottest of seats.
There’s something about Texas Tech that makes us all gravitate towards coaches who have ties to the university. Currently, the head baseball coach, the head women’s basketball coach, and the head men’s basketball coach all either graduated from Tech or spent significant portions of their careers as Red Raiders. What’s more, the previous football coach and the first women’s basketball coach that Kirby Hocutt hired were also Red Raider alums.
Some believe that our collective obsession with keeping it in the Red Raider family is unhealthy and there are instances when excluding coaches with no Texas Tech ties is unwise (see Mike Leach for example). However, this is a unique university with a culture that is unlike any other school.
Isolated hours from any major population center, Texas Tech is truly a tribal school where there’s little mingling with those from other universities and that has bread an “us against the world“ mentality which contributes heavily to our obsession with trusting fellow Red Raiders over people we don’t know.
That’s why the Sonny Cumbie hire has been received so well by Red Raiders. It has brought home a name and a face we are familiar with and one who has already brought the university quite a bit of glory through his playing days. Now, Wells is banking on this native son to help right a ship that is listing heavily and taking on water.
But it’s been seven years since Cumbie left Tech to take the OC job at TCU. Over that time, Red Raider fans may not have followed his career all that closely. So let’s take a look at some important things to know about his time in Fort Worth for they may help us understand what he will bring to his alma mater.