The fired Texas Tech coach and USC offensive coordinator of like 15 minutes is now an NFL head coach.
College football and the NFL have fused schematically.
The styles of play aren’t exactly the same at the two levels, of course, nor from team to team at each. But the big concepts popular at one level are also popular at the other, whether that’s the Chiefs running the shotgun triple option with Patrick Mahomes or Alabama installing an ambitious downfield passing game for Tua Tagovailoa.
The last Super Bowl was loaded with Xs and Os that used to be considered college’s domain. The option has permeated all levels of the sport. Spread offenses have gradually filtered upward. NFL teams have looked to Oklahoma’s coach for ideas. Lamar Jackson just won an NFL division while running option plays his foes used to think were a fad.
The NFL is so into college-style offense that a Big 12 coach who got fired in November is now getting an NFL head coaching job in January.
That’s Kliff Kingsbury, formerly of Texas Tech.
Cardinals are giving new HC Kliff Kingsbury a four-year deal, with a team option for a fifth year, per league source.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 8, 2019
Kingsbury, the 39-year-old former Mike Leach quarterback, got fired in November after six seasons and a ton of points — when Tech had the ball and, more problematically, when Tech was playing defense. The Red Raiders’ pass-heavy scheme produced Mahomes (and Baker Mayfield, sort of) and led to a handful of the best offenses in the country. But defense was a perpetual problem and eventually got Kingsbury fired.
A bunch of NFL teams expressed interest in having him as a coordinator, but Kingsbury caught on with USC on December 5 as offensive coordinator after Tech cut him loose. His arrival in Los Angeles was supposed to signal a shift from a run-centered offense to a pass-centered one. He turned out to spend one month and two days at USC.
Previously, what we’d known of NFL teams’ pursuit of Kingsbury was that they were looking at him as a coordinator. So it made enough sense that he’d pick USC, where he could have elite college talent and maybe become head coach one day.
USC reportedly sought to deny Kingsbury the chance to interview for NFL head coaching jobs with both the Cardinals and Jets. That seems, still, like a terrible sign for Trojans head coach Clay Helton, who almost got fired after the 2018 season.
But more than anything, it’s a signal about where the NFL is going schematically.
That NFL teams that wanted Kingsbury as head coach makes a lot of sense, despite his bad records at Texas Tech.
Think of the team that hired him and the other team that is known to have considered him seriously. The Cardinals’ Josh Rosen (UCLA) and the Jets’ Sam Darnold (USC) both played in college offenses that leaned more toward the “traditional pro-style” end of the spectrum. The spread is everywhere now, but neither QB spent much time in Kingsbury’s beloved four-wide sets. Big formations and power running were key parts of both their college systems. Chip Kelly didn’t get to UCLA until Rosen was on his way out.
Both QBs have big arms, though, and it’s easy to figure why an NFL team would be enticed by the idea of Kingsbury working with one of them. Mahomes is probably Kingsbury’s most famous QB success story, but he’s not close to the only one.
He coached Johnny Manziel during his Heisman year at Texas A&M and later got some production out of Davis Webb, who had a few good years at Tech before Mahomes unseated him. Webb transferred to play in another air raid system: Sonny Dykes’ at Cal. He’s now with the Jets, where he could reunite with Kingsbury.
The coach kept getting big QB numbers after Mahomes left for the NFL, working the last two years with Nic Shimonek and Alan Bowman, whom most fans have never heard of.
That’s been Kingsbury’s track record. QBs who play for him put up huge numbers, and not just because they’re throwing a lot. For instance, Bowman averaged 8.1 yards per throw this year at Texas Tech, and that was pacing to be a top-25 rate nationally if he didn’t get hurt. His offenses have usually been efficient and not just obsessed with volume throwing.
The Cardinals also don’t seem that worried about figuring out how to field a good defense. That’s probably fine!
It suggests they’re open to hiring a head coach who a) has no defensive background himself, and b) had a lot of really bad defenses in the Big 12.
This is the thing, though: NFL teams get to draft players. At Tech, Kingsbury had to recruitplayers to a Big 12 program in a town one of his predecessors has compared to Siberia and Iraq. The Red Raiders didn’t land much top talent, and Kingsbury’s strategic smarts were only able to make up for that on the side of the ball he’s been on his whole life.
With the Cardinals, he’ll have a much higher baseline of defensive talent. He’ll need a good coordinator, sure, but it makes a lot of sense that Arizona went offense-first with this hire. Kingsbury already lives where the rest of the NFL is clearly heading.