The Kliff Kingsbury era (as a head coach) out in Lubbock was a bit of a bizarre one. Kingsbury was able to coach a future Heisman winner during his debut season as the head coach of the Texas Tech football team, but that future Heisman winner actually transferred out of the TTU football program and won that award elsewhere.
Continuing to move through the Texas Tech Red Raiders football records and we’re continuing to see Kliff Kingsbury’s name pop up time and time again. That’s not a surprise by any stretch of the imagination. The man had a significant impact on the football team out in Lubbock.
And in many ways, it’s still disappointing that the entirety of his tenure wasn’t defined by more success and wins. Still, that first season where Kingsbury was head coach? That was pretty fun (even if it wasn’t the best season ever).
Texas Tech football history: Kliff Kingsbury’s first season as TTU’s head coach had the Red Raiders scoring plenty of points
It was one of the better offenses that the Red Raiders have seen in recent seasons. I mean, since 2000, it’s one of the 10 best offenses that Texas Tech has deployed. We’re talking about an offense that managed to throw for 5107 yards (between a couple of young quarterbacks) while completing over 63 percent of its passes.
This offense had 392.8 passing yards per game, scored 35.8 points per game, and featured a tight end (shoutout to Jace Amaro) who happened to catch 106 passes for 1352 yards and eight touchdowns.
Back to the weirdness of this season (and the Kingsbury era as a whole) for a moment. This offense (a good, but not truly great one) helped the Red Raiders win eight games, but seven of those wins came in the first seven weeks of the season. TTU then lost five straight and rebounded by winning its bowl game.