Texas Tech football: Sonny Cumbie to La Tech; two new names to watch for OC
Just when Texas Tech football fans believed that our turn on the coaching carousel was over, Tuesday morning happened. Fortunately, Tech is not in the market for a head coach as so many programs throughout the nation are in this unprecedented time but once again, new head coach Joey McGuire will have to search for an offensive coordinator after Sonny Cumbie’s jump to Louisiana Tech where he will be the head coach of the Bulldogs.
Cumbie is reportedly being tabbed as the man to replace Skip Holtz in Ruston, Louisiana where he will be a head coach for the first time in his collegiate coaching career. It’s a situation set up for success for Cumbie as the Bulldogs have been to six bowl games since 2014.
But it does leave McGuire having to jump back into the pool and find someone else to lead his offense. And the consensus seems to be that a pair of Texas Tech alums are the leading candidates.
Across social media, the names of Graham Harrell and Zach Kittley are being tossed about as the likely candidates to replace Cumbie. So let’s take a look at both men’s careers to get an idea of what they could bring to the South Plains.
Graham Harrell
Harrell will always be a Texas Tech football icon because of his playing days in Lubbock where he set nearly every school passing record. But now, could he return to West Texas to try to help resurrect his alma mater’s football program?
As an offensive coordinator, Harrell has had mixed success. Though, in recent years, the instability at his current school, USC, has not helped matters much.
His 2021 offense currently ranks No. 25 nationally in total yards per game at 447.1. When you consider that injuries have forced him to juggle his starting QBs for much of the season, that’s a fairly impressive feat.
In 2020, USC produced the No. 11 passing offense in the country and QB Kedon Slovis was named an All-Pac 12 honoree. The year prior, Harrell’s first season at USC, his offense saw an improvement of over 105 yards per game passing and over six points per game from the previous season.
Prior to that, Harrell made a name for himself at North Texas where he took over one of the nation’s most woebegone offenses and eventually built a top-25 statistical unit. He also helped QB Mason Fine become the Conference USA Player of the Year in both 2017 and 2018.
Harrell is a clear Mike Leach disciple. Thus, those longing for the return of the true “Air Raid” offense, might be intrigued by Harrell.
But Harrell is a bit more balanced than his mentor is when it comes to calling plays. This year, USC threw the ball an average of 41.9 times per game while running it 32.6 times. That’s a far cry from the Leach philosophy which often saw him go an entire game without calling a single running play (the QB had the freedom to audible into a run if he saw fit to though).
Harrell’s work with Fine and Slovis might be appealing to McGuire given that next year, Tech will have to develop a starting QB after seeing three different players make multiple starts in 2021. But on the other hand, Slovis has regressed since his freshman season as his yards per attempt, TD: INT ratio, and passer rating have all been significantly worse over the last two seasons than they were in 2019 when he was a true freshman who was thrust into action early because of an injury to J.T. Daniels.
Still, Harrell is a name to watch in this coaching search. Like Cumbie, he is a young coach whose trajectory is still pointing upwards and he could bring similar levels of enthusiasm and energy as Cumbie did, something that would likely appeal to McGuire.
Zach Kittley
The son of current Texas Tech track and field coach, Wes Kittley, Zach Kittley is one of the hottest names in the world of college football assistants. And because of one game, he’s a name many Texas Tech football fans have been monitoring closely.
In the first game of the 2020 season, Tech hosted Houston Baptist of the FCS ranks in a game that saw the Huskies come within a late two-point conversion of sending the affair to OT. And the star of the night for HBU was QB Bailey Zappe who passed for 567 yards and 4 TDs in the upset bid. But the other man on the HBU side of the ledger to make a name for himself that night was offensive coordinator Zach Kittley. And since then, many Texas Tech football fans have been clambering for his return to the Hub City.
A Lubbock native and Texas Tech alum, Kittley is one of the fastest-rising stars in the assistant coaching game. This year, as offensive coordinator at Western Kentucky, he has the No. 2 unit in the country in terms of total offense (524.7 yards per game) trailing only Ohio State.
And for those wanting a pass-happy offense, Kittley may be your guy. WKU is throwing the ball a whopping 49.3 times per game this season while running it only 25.4 times.
Much of that is because Zappe is now the QB at WKU. And with two games left to play, he appears poised to break the NCAA record for passing yards in a season, a mark held by former Tech QB B. J. Symmons. So far, Zappe is averaging 414 yards per game through the air and he’s tossed 52 TD passes with only nine interceptions against him.
But therein lies the question about Kittley. Is he responsible for Zappe’s success or just a product of it? He’s never coordinated an offense without Zappe at the helm so it is tough to know for certain.
Kittley is a Kliff Kingsbury disciple. He was a grad assistant at Tech under Kingsbury for three years (2015-17) and prior to that, he was a student assistant from 2013-14.
There’s no denying the numbers that Kittley’s offense has put up but can he duplicate them without Zappe? That’s the question that McGuire will have to answer if he is considering Kittley for the job of offensive coordinator at Tech.
In the end, a slight edge might go to Harrell in this OC evaluation being as he has had success with multiple FBS programs and two different QBs. But it’s hard to ignore the numbers Kittley is putting up in his young career. And in the end, either Texas Tech alum would be a nice option to fill Cumbie’s shoes.