- This team went through major controversy last year as Mike Leach was fired amidst allegations that he had mistreated wide receiver Adam James. Adam is the son of ESPN analyst Craig James.
- Head Coach Tommy Tuberville is in his first year (previously head coach at Auburn where he led them to an undefeated season in 2004 but did not win the national title due to their 3rd place ranking in the BCS Standings). Tuberville was fired after Auburn’s 5-7 season in 2008. The reason why he did so poorly at Auburn in his final season was because of his failure in implementing the spread option offense. Auburn switched from a West Coast Offense to an up-tempo, no-huddle spread offense and in order to do this, Tuberville hired Offensive Coordinator Tony Franklin from Troy. Franklin took over at the end of the 2007 season and showed some promise helping Auburn defeat Clemson in the Chick-fil-A Bowl with the new offense. However, Franklin only lasted half of the following season before Tuberville fired him and the Tigers found themselves nationally ranked 110th in scoring offense, 104th in total offense, 106th in passing efficiency, 100th in turnover margin and 99th in passing offense at the end of the season. Yikes! That was the end of that. But not for Tuberville. He finds himself back in college football after just one year away and once again hired a Spread-guru Offensive Coordinator from Troy (I guess that’s where they grow them)
- Tuberville finds himself leading a Red Raiders program that has been #1 in the nation in passing offense in 6 of the last 8 years (they were 2nd last year and 3rd in 2006). Accompanying the large amount of passing is the almost non-existence of the running game. But that system that Mike Leach ran in Lubbock is quite different from Tuberville’s style. Tuberville’s emphasis has always been on running the ball and in fact, the lowest ration that he had at Auburn in terms of running vs passing was 56.6% back in 2000.
Texas Tech 2010
September 1, 2010 by
