Can Kliff Kingsbury turn the Red Raiders around in 2015?In a landscape quick to discard coaches, Texas Tech’s Kliff Kingsbury is in need of a turnaround 2015 season to avoid the hot-seat in 2016. The Red Raiders are 12-13 overall and 6-12 in Big 12 play over Kingsbury’s first two seasons in Lubbock. That success doesn’t match the large, and mostly guaranteed, contract that the former Red Raider quarterback was given after a 2013 season which ended with a bowl game and a 7-0 start to Kingsbury’s coaching career.The Red Raider football program has struggled since Mike Leach was fired. Leach never integrated himself with the movers and shakers around the program, leaving him an easy target when scandal and off-the-field issues arose. Texas Tech was good under Leach, but it was obvious that the decision-makers in Lubbock thought he had overstayed his welcome. Tommy Tuberville took over the job and left for Cincinnati after a disastrous few seasons.The culture in the program was ripe for Texas Tech to hire one of its own, and Kingsbury was a perfect fit after leading a Texas A&M offense that produced Heisman trophy winner Johnny Manziel. Kingsbury’s history as a quarterback at Tech, his up-tempo offense that could be traced back to Leach and his GQ looks made him a perfect fit to take over a program that was searching for an identity and a place within the pecking order of the state and Big 12 since Leach departed.It started so promising. Kingsbury’s charisma and Texas Tech’s 7-0 start to the 2013 season had everyone expecting that Kingsbury was the next hot-shot head coach in college football and that the Red Raiders would step back into prominence on a local and national level. However, since that quick start things haven’t gone as planned. Tech lost the last five games of the season, but salvaged the year by beating Arizona State. The momentum was on his side and he received a raise and an extension before the 2014 season on the heels of Texas Tech’s athletic fundraising campaign and season ticket sales going through the roof. Texas Tech football was on the up-tick and Kingsbury was the front-man of the band.Then 2014 happened.Injuries derailed the season and the Red Raiders missed a bowl game, finishing 4-8. Even with Texas struggling, it was Tech that was the worst P5 school in the state of Texas. After strong recruiting classes in 2011 and 2012, Texas Tech ranked 51st, 43rd and 40th in 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively, according to Rivals.com. A late switch by prized quarterback recruit Jarrett Stidham from Tech to Baylor echoed home the sentiments that the Red Raiders had lost momentum.There is little doubt that Kingsbury will get the 2015 and 2016 season to figure this all out. He deserves four years to get his recruits through the program before Lubbock calls for his head. He’s made the university a lot of money and showed that in 2013 he was capable of a winning season. College football is big business, however, and Texas Tech invested a lot of money into Kingsbury. And in a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world of big-time college athletics, Texas Tech will eat one of its own by 2017 if the Red Raiders are still an afterthought in the state of Texas. Mike Craven is the publisher of BirdsUp.com and a TexasFootball.com contributor.
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