Ranking the Texas Tech football offensive coordinators for the past 15 years
No. 3 Zach Kittley (2022-present)
The book on current O.C. Zach Kittley is still being written. However, what he's done in his two years at Tech is good enough to put him third on this countdown.
Kittley is still green as a coordinator. In fact, he's only coordinated an offense at the FBS level for three seasons.
The last two of those years have been at Tech where he's had an up-and-down tenure. At times, he appears on his way to being the next offensive guru to take college football by storm, and at other times, he seems to be struggling in his maturation as a play-caller.
In 2022, Kittley's offense was 22nd nationally in yards per game at 461.4. It was also 26th in scoring offense at 34.2 points per game. That was despite having to start three different quarterbacks for multiple games.
This past fall, Tech ranked just 64th in yards (386.7 per game) and 62nd in scoring offense (27.4 points per game). However, what Kittley did in 2023 was more impressive than what he showed in his first season at Tech.
With starting QB Tyler Shough lost for the year with a broken leg in game four and with No. 2 QB Behren Morton having to play through a sprained throwing shoulder for the final nine games of the season, Kittley was forced to adapt on the fly and feature running back Tahj Brooks as the bellcow of his offense.
It is never easy to completely overhaul an offense in the middle of a season. That's especially true for such a young coordinator as Kittley.
However, he was smart enough to see that the only chance his team had to win games was to feed Brooks the ball and that's what he did (even if it took him longer to commit to doing that than many fans would have liked).
Perhaps the experience of 2023 will make Kittley an even better coordinator down the road. It will be interesting to see how his offense performs this coming fall, especially given the upgrades at WR that the program has made and the hope that Morton can stay healthy for an entire season. If Tech fields one of the top offenses in the Big 12 and the Red Raiders make noise, not only will Kittley's stock as a coordinator rise but so too will his stock rise as a potential head coach.