The five biggest "What ifs" that Texas Tech football fans still ask themselves

What if Texas Tech wouldn't have hired Matt Wells in 2019?

Current Texas Tech A.D. Kirby Hocutt made a huge mistake in 2019 when he conducted the search for Kingsbury's replacement entirely on his own and settled on former Utah State head coach Matt Wells to lead the Red Raiders. What if Hocutt would have gone in a different direction? What's interesting about that question is that the answer is not what you might expect.

Now almost five years removed from that decision, everyone knows that Wells was an awful hire. He went just 13-17 overall and 7-16 in Big 12 play at Tech.

However, it was probably best for the program to have to live through the 2.5 seasons of Wells. That's because sometimes a program has to hit rock bottom before real change can take place.

Wells was so awful as a coach and so disliked by the majority of the fan base that Tech's biggest and most influential boosters began to rally against him publicly. Thus, when he was eventually axed, those donors were ready to do whatever they could to ensure that the program would not stay in its tattered state.

Had Tech hired then-West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen or former South Florida head coach Jim Leavitt, the two other rumored candidates, they might have made Tech mediocre or even slightly better than average. That could have led to a state of complacency among the fan base and the donors.

But because Wells ignited a flame of hatred among those who care about Tech football and are wealthy enough to do something about it, the program now will complete a $250 million renovation to Jones Stadium this fall and it has a healthy, active, and innovative N.I.L. collective to pave the way in the ever-changing landscape of college athletics.

So though no one will consider Wells' hiring to be a shining moment in Texas Tech football history, the reality is that Tech is better off for having had to live through Wells' tenure. Sometimes people have to become furious before they are willing to enact real change and that's what Wells' time in Lubbock did for the Red Raider fan base.