5 Worst head coaching hires in Texas Tech football history
No. 3: Jerry Moore has the worst winning percentage of any Texas Tech head coach of the modern era
If you don't count Grady Higginbotham who went 1-7-2 in his lone season as head coach at Texas Tech in 1929, then the worst winning percentage of any Red Raider coach belongs to Jerry Moore, who ironically, is in the College Football Hall of Fame.
Moore isn't enshrined though because of what he did in Lubbock. Rather, the three NCAA Division 1-AA (FCS) National Championships he won at Appalachian State are what earned him that distinction.
At Tech, though, Moore was an absolute train wreck. Granted, he didn't get a running start having to take over for Dockery.
Still, Moore was given five years to turn the program around, and never did he produce a winning record. From 1981-85 he would compile a record of just 16-37-2 and he would go just 9-29-2 in SWC games.
Moore's ineptitude on the South Plains was staggering. He never won more than four games in a season and he would twice fail to top the three-win mark.
Now, it must be stated that during this time, there was a bust in the oil field as the infamous 1980s oil glut saw demand for crude plummet sending oil prices to near record lows for most of the decade. Those who follow Texas Tech football also know that the funding of the program is usually directly tied to the health of the oil industry and during the 80s, Tech was operating on the cheap.
Still, people like David McWilliams and Spike Dykes were able to win in Lubbock under similar circumstances in the years immediately after Moore's tenure. The reality is that Moore was a disaster in Lubbock and his tenure set the program back for half a decade.
Many from that era might put Moore at the top of this list but because the resources he had to work with were a far cry from what the next two men on this list had at their disposal, he checks in at No. 3. But don't let that fool you. He was a calamitous hire who oversaw the worst era in program history.