The 2015 football season will be Kliff Kingsbury's third as head coach of the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Everything, from the roster to the uniforms and everything in between, has his fingerprints on it. This is his team and his program.
The third and fourth seasons of a coach's tenure is, on average, a critical window. History suggests that if Kingsbury is going to take the Red Raiders forward and (even temporarily) change the program's status quo, it will likely either happen sometime in his first four seasons or not at all.
There are always exceptions, but this mostly holds true if you look around the Big 12. Bob Stoops won a national championship in his second season in Norman and followed that up with an 11-2 campaign in Year 3. Charlie Strong went from 14-12 in his first two seasons at Louisville to 23-3 the following two seasons. Bill Snyder led Kansas State to its first winning season in a decade in his third season in Manhattan. He did it again after his brief retirement, jumping from 13-12 from 2009-10 to 21-5 from 2011-12. Art Briles' third season at Baylor ended with the program's first bowl game in 15 years; his fourth featured a Heisman Trophy and BU's first 10-win season in 30 years. Oklahoma State went 9-4 in Mike Gundy's fourth season at the helm, the program's second-best season since Barry Sanders' departure.
The four-year window does not always deliver positive results, of course. Guy Morris, Briles' predecessor at Baylor, regressed from Year 3 to Year 4 and was out the door after his fifth season on the Brazos. Dana Holgorsen hasn't come close to matching the success of his debut 10-3 season and went 11-14 combined in his third and fourth seasons. Charlie Weis was fired four games into his third season at Kansas. Paul Rhoads was at best treading water in his third and fourth seasons at Iowa State and the bottom has since fallen out.
Texas Tech's modern coaching history generally supports this theory. Tommy Tuberville's third season was nothing special compared to the seasons that preceded his arrival and he wasn't around for a fourth. Mike Leach's third season was the program's best (9-5) in seven years. Spike Dykes also reached nine wins in his third season, the program's best mark in nearly 15 years. Jerry Moore didn't have anyone feeling Moore Excitement by Year 3 or 4. Rex Dockery was named Southwest Conference Coach of the Year after his first season, but things went south quickly and he was gone after his third. Steve Sloan peaked in Year 2 with a 10-2 record and was off to Ole Miss after going 7-5 in Year 3. Jim Carlen won 19 combined games in his third and fourth seasons in Lubbock, the best two-year stretch in program history at that point. J.T. King snapped a seven-year string of losing seasons with a 5-5 mark in his third season on campus, and followed that up with a 6-4-1 season and a trip to the Sun Bowl a year later. DeWitt Weaver's tenure ended with five-straight losing campaigns but he won 18 games and the Gator Bowl in his third and fourth seasons.
Mack Brown's head coaching career tracks along with this theory, as he took major steps forward in his third and/or fourth seasons at Tulane, North Carolina and Texas. The same goes for Urban Meyer (Florida, Ohio State), Nick Saban (Michigan State, LSU, Alabama) and Jim Harbaugh (San Diego, Stanford).
This notion doesn't just track with the sport's blue blood programs and elite coaches.
Clemson -- Tommy West plateaued at sub-par seven and eight wins -- Clemson had won nine or more games in six of the seven years before West's arrival -- in Years 2-4 and never broke through. Tommy Bowden had three nine-win seasons in his 10 years (Years 2, 5 and 9) but mostly hovered around seven and eight wins. Dabo Swinney's third season was the program's first 10-win campaign in 20 years and he's posted double-digit wins every season since.
Iowa -- Bob Commings inherited a program that hadn't had a winning season in 13 seasons and that streak continued throughout his tenure. The Hawyekes broke through with an 8-4 season in Hayden Fry's third season; he won 54 games over the next six years. Kirk Ferentz posted the program's first 11-win season in Year 3.
Michigan State -- Bobby Williams, a holdover from Nick Saban's staff, debuted with the program's first losing season since before Saban's arrival. He rebounded with a 7-5 season in Year 2 but finished last in the Big Ten the following year and was fired. John L. Smith's high point in East Lansing was his first season (8-5) and he won just nine combined games in Years 3 and 4. Mark Dantonio's third season (6-7) was a dip compared to his first two (16-10), but he followed that up with an 11-2 campaign in Year 4.
Ole Miss -- Ed Orgeron didn't show any improvement from Year 1 to Year 3 and he wasn't around for a fourth season. Houston Nutt won 18 games in his first two seasons and just six in his third and fourth. Hugh Freeze took over a 2-10 team and posted a 9-4 record in Year 3.
Mississippi State -- Jackie Sherrill dipped from seven wins to four from Year 2 to Year 3, but the Bulldogs posted their highest win total (8) in more than a decade during his fourth season. Sylvester Croom won nine combined games in his first three seasons and eight in his fourth; he was fired after going 4-8 the next year. Dan Mullen's big bump came in Year 2 with a 9-4 record and he hasn't looked back posting seasons of 7, 8, 7 and 10 wins since.
Missouri -- Bob Stull's high-water mark was four wins in Year 2 and he didn't do better than 3-7 in the three seasons after that. Larry Smith's third season was the Tigers' best in nine years (5-6) and his 7-5 fourth was their first winning season in almost 15 years. Gary Pinkel started off with two seven-loss seasons but rebounded with the program's second-best season in 20 years (8-5) in Year 3.
Oklahoma State -- Bob Simmons peaked with an eight-win season in his third year in Stillwater, but followed that up with a five-win season. Les Miles' third-season was the Pokes' first with nine wins in 15 years. We already covered Gundy; his nine-win fourth season marked the beginning if the best six-year stretch in program history.
Perhaps the best current exception to this is Frank Beamer. He inherited a Virginia Tech team that not only hadn't had a losing season in seven seasons, but won 33 games in the four years before he took over. Beamer proceeded to go 5-17 in his first two seasons and just 12-9 in his third and fourth. He posted four losing seasons in his first six in Blacksburg and didn't start to get things on track until Year 7.
Beamer isn't the only exception, though.
Mike Stoops's Arizona tenure doesn't fit neatly into this theory either. He didn't post a single winning season in his first four tries with the Wildcats. He eventually broke through with the program's best seasons in a decade (back-to-back 8-5 seasons) but it wasn't until Year 5 and 6.
Houston Nutt's time at Arkansas didn't really follow this theory, but Bobby Petrino's did.
R.C. Slocum's tenure took a major step forward at Texas A&M starting in Year 3, but his successors in Aggieland haven't been able to sustain any momentum. Dennis Franchione's fourth-season was his best (9-4) but he was out after Year 5. Mike Sherman, in Year 3, also posted a high mark of 9-4 but he was gone a year later. Kevin Sumlin has regressed from 11 wins in Year 1 to just eight in Year 3.
The future, of course, is not written. Kingsbury could go 4-8 again this season and next and then reel off five-straight undefeated seasons. Maybe he's the next Frank Beamer? That probably won't happen. The more likely outcome, however, is 2015 and 2016 will prove to be a major pivot point of Kingsbury's tenure as Texas Tech's head football coach.
