Here’s my ten cents. I chimed in a couple times on several threads but didn’t want to make a knee jerk reaction to the season. This board is comprised of many different Red Raider fans; the die-hard fan, the casual fan, the troller from another school (far too many), the troller from Tech (far too many) the donors, the former players, the parents/family members of players, the sunshine pumping fan (I’ll admit I’m guilty of this), the losing a single game is unacceptable fan, etc. Now it’s impossible to appease all these different types of fans.
What is tiresome is that after 7 games, a still young coaches’ stint at this university has been decided by some. Now you can throw out all the comparison you want. Compare him to Spike, Leach, Kliff, Dana, Brown, Beard, Tadlock or Vince Lombardy. Tech is a very unique school. It’s an isolated school from a geographic standpoint and it’s an isolated school in how the culture gets into you. This is why I feel strongly that Wells is the right fit. While he had up and down years at Utah State, he was recruiting, he was selling, he was winning more often than not in Logan, Utah. Now I’ve never been, I’m sure it’s great a place but just like people who have never been to Lubbock or spent a significant amount of time there, they turn up their noses at the name. I feel that played a large role in Kirby’s decision to hire Wells. Wells is a head coach, not by the chance opportunity but he looks, acts, talks the part and he has solid returns. He wants to be in Lubbock. He’s in the mold as other successful coaches (as good as a track record as Beard at other stops, NO!) who were given opportunities at non-traditional power football, basketball or baseball schools (Tech obviously one of them).
I don’t think a lot of you realize just how difficult it is to inherit a new football team. To walk into a new room and have a 100 faces you’ve never seen looking up at you for all the answers. The coaching fraternity is littered with new coaches who were successful in year one with someone else’s players, only to be fired a couple years later. There aren’t that many top tier coaches and even there were, Tech is not that desirable of a landing spot, to be honest.
A lot of you have firsthand experience of taking a new job, moving your family across country, taking on a new workforce, tasked with turning companies or departments around – now topple that with a large fan base who is dissecting your every split second decision, every word out of your mouth, every element of your body language – BUT only after a loss or god forbid a losing season. Yes, he is more than well compensated salary wise so these criticisms come with the territory.
Press conferences and early interviews aside, this was never going to be an 8 win team. 7 wins probably would have been high. Matt Wells was hired to build new, not rebuild. Now you can begin to build in year one. You can build after an embarrassing loss to Kansas. You build after one of your best players, who leads the FBS in INT makes a mistake that may or may not have cost them the game (who knows what would have happened in OT), by galvanizing around him. By finding the leaders already on the team. By coming back stronger the next game and the next game. By hitting the road and gaining the high school coaches respect (which I feel he’s done a great job with) for every inch of a recruiting advantage. Wells hasn’t even had a full off-season yet and that is when the program is built. Yes, in game coaching might win or lose you a game here or there but the off-season, the culture, the consistency, the team accountability is what builds a program. He still doesn’t know what he has, so he’s still learning how to coach this team, both in game and off the field and so are his assistants for that matter. They are seeing these teams for the first time too. Yes Yost and Patterson had swims through the B12 but the landscape has changed greatly since then. If in 2021, we lose to Kansas, then sure, call for his firing, call for Kirby to resign, but we are 8 games into a complete new-build. The word reload has never been mentioned in association to Texas Tech Football. And how could we believe that after going 5-7, 6-7 and 5-7 the last 3 seasons, that by hiring a new head coach, this would be a reload season? Wells hasn’t even been able to make a new hire, to compete in a full season of recruiting and already he has failed in some eyes.
Just don’t get where as a fan base some feel so entitled, as though Tech has been some sort of great program. That’s where we are trying to get to and Wells is simply another opportunity to try and accomplish such an incredible feat. We should all at least be behind him during his first several years. Be critical of Wells and the staff and of Kirby, that’s all of our rights as fans but for goodness sakes, support Texas Tech and support the staff at least for a couple seasons. That’s what the program really needs right now.
Guns Up!! Wreck ‘Em!!!
What is tiresome is that after 7 games, a still young coaches’ stint at this university has been decided by some. Now you can throw out all the comparison you want. Compare him to Spike, Leach, Kliff, Dana, Brown, Beard, Tadlock or Vince Lombardy. Tech is a very unique school. It’s an isolated school from a geographic standpoint and it’s an isolated school in how the culture gets into you. This is why I feel strongly that Wells is the right fit. While he had up and down years at Utah State, he was recruiting, he was selling, he was winning more often than not in Logan, Utah. Now I’ve never been, I’m sure it’s great a place but just like people who have never been to Lubbock or spent a significant amount of time there, they turn up their noses at the name. I feel that played a large role in Kirby’s decision to hire Wells. Wells is a head coach, not by the chance opportunity but he looks, acts, talks the part and he has solid returns. He wants to be in Lubbock. He’s in the mold as other successful coaches (as good as a track record as Beard at other stops, NO!) who were given opportunities at non-traditional power football, basketball or baseball schools (Tech obviously one of them).
I don’t think a lot of you realize just how difficult it is to inherit a new football team. To walk into a new room and have a 100 faces you’ve never seen looking up at you for all the answers. The coaching fraternity is littered with new coaches who were successful in year one with someone else’s players, only to be fired a couple years later. There aren’t that many top tier coaches and even there were, Tech is not that desirable of a landing spot, to be honest.
A lot of you have firsthand experience of taking a new job, moving your family across country, taking on a new workforce, tasked with turning companies or departments around – now topple that with a large fan base who is dissecting your every split second decision, every word out of your mouth, every element of your body language – BUT only after a loss or god forbid a losing season. Yes, he is more than well compensated salary wise so these criticisms come with the territory.
Press conferences and early interviews aside, this was never going to be an 8 win team. 7 wins probably would have been high. Matt Wells was hired to build new, not rebuild. Now you can begin to build in year one. You can build after an embarrassing loss to Kansas. You build after one of your best players, who leads the FBS in INT makes a mistake that may or may not have cost them the game (who knows what would have happened in OT), by galvanizing around him. By finding the leaders already on the team. By coming back stronger the next game and the next game. By hitting the road and gaining the high school coaches respect (which I feel he’s done a great job with) for every inch of a recruiting advantage. Wells hasn’t even had a full off-season yet and that is when the program is built. Yes, in game coaching might win or lose you a game here or there but the off-season, the culture, the consistency, the team accountability is what builds a program. He still doesn’t know what he has, so he’s still learning how to coach this team, both in game and off the field and so are his assistants for that matter. They are seeing these teams for the first time too. Yes Yost and Patterson had swims through the B12 but the landscape has changed greatly since then. If in 2021, we lose to Kansas, then sure, call for his firing, call for Kirby to resign, but we are 8 games into a complete new-build. The word reload has never been mentioned in association to Texas Tech Football. And how could we believe that after going 5-7, 6-7 and 5-7 the last 3 seasons, that by hiring a new head coach, this would be a reload season? Wells hasn’t even been able to make a new hire, to compete in a full season of recruiting and already he has failed in some eyes.
Just don’t get where as a fan base some feel so entitled, as though Tech has been some sort of great program. That’s where we are trying to get to and Wells is simply another opportunity to try and accomplish such an incredible feat. We should all at least be behind him during his first several years. Be critical of Wells and the staff and of Kirby, that’s all of our rights as fans but for goodness sakes, support Texas Tech and support the staff at least for a couple seasons. That’s what the program really needs right now.
Guns Up!! Wreck ‘Em!!!
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