It’s never a great thing to lose an offensive coordinator who seems to understand how to innovate, take advantage of talent, and maximize opportunities. And the Red Raiders lost that in Zach Kittley as he left Lubbock to go be the head coach of the Florida Atlantic Owls, replacing Tom Herman in the process.
But while Texas Tech’s offense was productive and effective, it wasn’t perfect. And as for Kittley, he’s also not totally irreplaceable. There are other innovative offensive minds that can step into Lubbock and lead an offense to scoring a bunch of points.
That seems to be the hope with Mack Leftwich, the bright mind who was helping GJ Kinne over in San Marcos. The Texas State Bobcats have been a ton of fun to watch and now the offensive coordinator who helped make all of that click is in Lubbock, leading the Red Raiders offense.
It’s going to be a ton of fun to watch that. And it seems like there’s going to be an emphasis on remaining aggressive on offense with Leftwich as the coordinator.
Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire discusses the new approach on offense and how they’ll remain aggressive with Mack Leftwich
During a press conference, McGuire was asked about how in the past, the head coach of the Red Raiders noted that the team didn’t remain aggressive enough on offense. Now, with Leftwich as the offensive coordinator, that seems to be changing.
“We’ll be like that all year long,” McGuire stated. “You know Mack, you can ask him, but he talks about it all the time of scoring from far, of being more explosive.”
With the sort of veer-and-shoot offensive influences that Leftwich has, it’s going to be a ton of fun watching the Red Raiders on offense this season.
“I think the two outside receivers especially are going to bring that into play,” McGuire said. “You know, we were going through the depth chart and man we are really long, have great size in every position of our skill, when you’re talking about the tight ends and the receivers.”
That’s going to lead to plenty of opportunities to chuck the ball downfield and stretch the defense out on a much more regular basis. There’s a reason why Texas State fans have had so much fun over the past couple years. Their offense has been a blast. And now we get to see that same sort of system in Lubbock.