Let me preface this by saying that I've been a Kent Hance fan and defender on here for years. The work he did as chancellor raised the stature of TTU immensely and continues to pay dividends.
That being said, when Hance tries to get involved in athletics the track record is not nearly as pristine. I don't blame him for the Leach stuff, but there's no reason he should have been involved in it either. Has Tedd Mitchell been mentioned once in relation to the Kliff decision or coaching search? No.
It's an open secret that Hance and others have made a hard November push for Kirby to hire Briles in both 2016 and 2017. I'm talking to the point of preparing a PR campaign to win over the fan base. Unluckily for them, Kliff won his final game in both of those seasons and quelled the fan base, providing Kirby cover to keep him. This year, that didn't happen and the pressure finally built to a breaking point.
Kirby is an excellent athletic director, but Hance is an excellent politician...and he's been playing the game much longer than Kirby has. While Kirby is trying to quietly navigate the minefield of reaching out to currently-employed coaches, why does Kirk Bohls of the Austin American Statesman keep having these "scoops"?
Who is the highest ranking Tech "source" who is also an Austin resident?
Why does Hance feel the need to leak Venables' name before we've even played the last game? Why is Hance so adamantly against Holgorsen?
I'm not going to pretend to be well-versed enough to understand they "why" behind these tactics. He could be trying to blow-up Kirby's top candidates, or he could just be trying to stir the pot to assert his relevance. Either way he needs to stop.
If Hance wants to help Texas Tech, he needs to get out there and lobby to fund our vet school and other major projects, not try to out-leverage our Athletic Director so he can cherry-pick our next head football coach (or just insert himself into the mix so he can still be relevant). If he can't do that, he needs to STFU and be retired.
This hire could either set us back a decade or catapult us into national relevance again. I trust Kirby 100% and if I was him I would be furious that people like Hance are trying, intentionally or not, to ruin that.
Rant over.
That being said, when Hance tries to get involved in athletics the track record is not nearly as pristine. I don't blame him for the Leach stuff, but there's no reason he should have been involved in it either. Has Tedd Mitchell been mentioned once in relation to the Kliff decision or coaching search? No.
It's an open secret that Hance and others have made a hard November push for Kirby to hire Briles in both 2016 and 2017. I'm talking to the point of preparing a PR campaign to win over the fan base. Unluckily for them, Kliff won his final game in both of those seasons and quelled the fan base, providing Kirby cover to keep him. This year, that didn't happen and the pressure finally built to a breaking point.
Kirby is an excellent athletic director, but Hance is an excellent politician...and he's been playing the game much longer than Kirby has. While Kirby is trying to quietly navigate the minefield of reaching out to currently-employed coaches, why does Kirk Bohls of the Austin American Statesman keep having these "scoops"?
Who is the highest ranking Tech "source" who is also an Austin resident?
Why does Hance feel the need to leak Venables' name before we've even played the last game? Why is Hance so adamantly against Holgorsen?
I'm not going to pretend to be well-versed enough to understand they "why" behind these tactics. He could be trying to blow-up Kirby's top candidates, or he could just be trying to stir the pot to assert his relevance. Either way he needs to stop.
If Hance wants to help Texas Tech, he needs to get out there and lobby to fund our vet school and other major projects, not try to out-leverage our Athletic Director so he can cherry-pick our next head football coach (or just insert himself into the mix so he can still be relevant). If he can't do that, he needs to STFU and be retired.
This hire could either set us back a decade or catapult us into national relevance again. I trust Kirby 100% and if I was him I would be furious that people like Hance are trying, intentionally or not, to ruin that.
Rant over.
