Four days after Tommy Tuberville stunned most everyone -- including some potential recruits -- by leaving Texas Tech for Cincinnati, Tech has found its new head coach.
And, as it turns out, it won’t take him long to get acclimated to Lubbock.
In a move that was initially announced on Twitter by athletic director Kirby Hocutt, the school has confirmed the hiring of Kliff Kingsbury as the Red Raiders’ new head football coach.
The move will prove wildly popular in Lubbock; Kingsbury was a prolific quarterback for the Red Raiders from 1998-2002, setting myriad school passing marks under Mike Leach his last two seasons.
Kingsbury’s meteoric rise to the head coach of a BCS-level football program is nothing short of astonishing. His first coaching job at the collegiate level was at Houston -- as a quality control coach. Two years later, he was co-offensive coordinator with the Cougars, followed by his first solo coordinator job at Texas A&M in 2012. Less than a year later, the 33-year-old has landed his first head coaching job.
In his first and only season in College Station -- which was also A&M’s first in the defense-heavy SEC -- Kingsbury directed one of the most prolific offenses in the country. The Aggies are currently third in the nation in scoring offense (44.8 points per game) and total offense (552.3 yards per game).
And, of course, there’s also that whole Heisman thing, which certainly didn’t hurt Kingsbury’s résumé.
Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris also interviewed for the Tech job, and both he and Kingsbury have been considered the front-runners the past couple of days.