Texas Tech football: 2021 could be make or break for Sonny Cumbie

For the vast majority of the last two decades, Texas Tech football fans have spent most of their time worrying about the program’s health on the defensive side of the football. That’s made the defensive coordinator of the day one of the most cussed and discussed figures in West Texas. But this year, there are massive questions to be answered on the other side of the ball and that puts offensive coordinator Sonny Cumbie near the center of any discussion about the potential of the 2021 Red Raiders.

In fact, this could very well be a career-defining season for the soon-to-be 40-year-old coach. That’s because, for the first time in his career, he will have free reign of a college offense.

When Cumbie was named the offensive coordinator under Kliff Kingsbury in 2013, he held that title in name only. That’s because everyone knew that Kingsbury was not only designing the offense but that he was also calling the plays and developing the quarterbacks.

So to get some more autonomy, in 2014 Cumbie left Lubbock to be the OC at TCU. But despite making that bold move to get out from under one head coach who dictated the offense, he would find that in Fort Worth, another head coach, Gary Patterson, would hold more influence over the offense than an OC would prefer.

Despite the fact that Patterson is considered a defensive genius who focuses primarily on that side of the ball, make no mistake, he exerts plenty of influence on his offensive coaching staff. It is similar to the relationship former Texas Tech head coach Tommy Tuberville had with his OC, Neal Brown, whom Tuberville severely handcuffed during the pair’s time in Lubbock.

But it wasn’t just Patterson’s unwillingness to let Cumbie off of his leash that made life difficult for Cumbie in Cowtown. It was also the fact that there were too many cooks in the TCU kitchen. That’s because, for four of Cumbie’s seven seasons at TCU, including 2020, Dough Meacham was also on staff with three of those years seeing the pair of coaches named co-offensive coordinators. In fact, the situation with the TCU offense became so convoluted last season that the media that covered the team often had no idea which coach was calling plays.

However, Cumbie is now clearly the leader of the Texas Tech offense in 2021. Matt Wells has said that he intends to let Cumbie run the offense as Cumbie sees fit and that has to be the opportunity that Cumbie has been looking for since 2014.

Of course, that also means that there are no more excuses. The buck stops at Cumbie and how he performs as an offensive coordinator this fall could have long-lasting reverberations throughout the Texas Tech football program.

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Many feel that the offense will be the wildcard of this year’s team. After all, the defense returns nine starters and a host of key backups while also featuring several impact transfers such as safety Marquis Waters and corners Rayshad Williams and Malik Dunlap. In other words, defensive coordinator Keith Patterson should have his best defense yet while at Tech.

That puts the onus on the offense to hold up its end of the bargain. And a repeat of last year’s performance (one that saw Tech score below 30 points per game for the first time since the 2000 season) is not going to cut it.

Therefore, Cumbie has to take an offense with a new starting QB, two new starters on the offensive line, and an unusually green group of receivers and find a way to put points on the board in a manner that befits the modern era of Texas Tech football.

If that doesn’t happen, the shine will be completely off of Cumbie as an OC. After all, he comes to Lubbock with several remarkably average seasons of production under his belt.

Last year, TCU was just No. 51 in the nation in total offense. That was 11 spots worse than the Red Raiders finished. What’s more, in the other three seasons in which Cumbie was the lone OC for the Horned Frogs, his offenses finished no better than 45 in the country.

Tech needs better than that this year. If an unencumbered Cumbie can build a top 15 offense in Lubbock, this could be the season that Tech finally returns to the land of the winning and Cumbie will start to have his name mentioned as a potential head coach in the making. But if he can’t build something greater than he built in Fort Worth, Wells will likely be fired and Cumbie almost certainly won’t survive either.

So in essence, this is indeed a make-or-break year for Cumbie just as it is for Wells. The two or linked together this fall and the immediate future of Texas Tech football hangs in the balance. Here’s hoping that now that his wings are no longer clipped, Cumbie can finally soar to the heights many have always thought he would reach as a coach.

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