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Coaching Carousel- 2018

TCUdirtbag

Active Member
I tend to agree, not a home run or a complete bust but a solid hire.

It certainly was a wild few days in Lubbock with a lot of drama but ultimately, I believe Kirby Hocutt landed his first choice.

In a statement last night Hocutt stated that he was on the phone with Wells on Sunday and interviewed Wells in Salt Lake City on Monday. Kliff was fired Sunday morning, meaning Wells was most likely Hocutt's first call. Hocutt knew exactly who he wanted and landed him.

As for the rest of the drama, the Holgerson interest was 100% real. I get the popular thing is going to be to disbelieve anything remotely positive about Texas Tech. However, multiple sources within the athletic department and two prominent boosters confirmed that the boosters were in contact with Holgerson. Holgerson agreed to meet with the boosters and Hocutt in Atlanta and contingent on an offer, Holgerson was ready to hold a press conference in Lubbock on Thursday, with Hocutt the boosters and Holgerson flying back to Lubbock on their jet.

This move was led by two prominent Texas Tech boosters that played for Leach and Holgerson, still keep in contact with Holgerson on a regular basis. They set this meeting up and told Hocutt that if he hires Holgerson, Kliff's buyout will be covered as well as all the funds needed to renovate the football stadium.

Hocutt balked on Thursday morning and declined to meet with Holgerson, stating that he's already gotten approval from the President to hire Wells and Wells was his guy.

This pissed the boosters off and they pulled their donation to renovate the football stadium.

Huge risky move by Hocutt as Holgerson would have been the splash hire and power move within the conference. Every Tech fan would have signed off on it, recruiting would have ticked up and ticket sales would have been good.

No one except Hocutt knows exactly why but my suspicion is that he's tired of the Leach coaching tree and the Tech boosters who are living in the past. Wants a clean slate to move forward on and he really likes Matt Wells.

Hocutt also interviewed Jim Leavitt, his former coach at KSU but the interview did not go well.

As far as Littrell, we don't know for sure if he got an interview but as he's part of the Leach tree, it would make sense not to hire him if you don't want Holgerson for that reason. I've also heard that Littrell makes it clear to everyone that his priority is the OU job and he will leave as soon as it becomes available.

I would have liked Holgerson, Littrell or Neal Brown. All good coaches but Hocutt has his reasons and he's made two home run hires in Tim Tadlock and Chris Beard, Tech fans really have no choice but to trust him here.

No way the big donor money thing is true. They’ve announced the big gifts for the end zone project over the past couple years and Hocutt is raising money hand over fist up there for all their capital projects, plus he’s earned a huge amount of trust from the big wigs. Tech like most state schools just has some 5-figure donors that think they get 7-figure donor influence and make a big stink and tell stories about the “big donors” that are entirely projecting.
 
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TechAdvisor

Active Member
No way the big donor money thing is true. They’ve announced the big gifts for the end zone project over the past couple years and Hocutt is raising money hand over fist up there for all their capital projects, plus he’s earned a huge amount of trust from the big wigs. Tech like most state schools just has some 5-figure donors that think they get 7-figure donor influence and make a big stink and tell stories about the “big donors” that are entirely projecting.

1. The Double Eagle guys sold their previous company for $2.8B and have just raised another $1B for a new company. They're not '5-figure donors that think they get 7-figure donor influence'. They're T. Boone Pickens level potential donors....and they're not in their 90's, so they have plenty of earning and giving potential left.

2. They had pledged to fund the South Endzone renovation for Jones AT&T Stadium back in January, but have now threatened to pull that funding. Let's hope cooler heads prevail.

3. I have no reason to believe they made up the Holgerson thing and even better, I don't know what they stand to gain by making it all up.

If you just wanted to make up a lie to cause the most traction, hurt the AD and hurt the biggest rival possible, why not just make up a lie about Lincoln Riley instead?

The Holgerson thing had multiple separately identified sources. It was 100% accurate.

No one except Hocutt knows exactly why but my suspicion is that he's tired of the Leach coaching tree and the Tech boosters who are living in the past. Wants a clean slate to move forward on and he really likes Matt Wells.

After a little more research on Wells and listening to his press conference, I'm now leaning towards Hocutt believing Matt Wells was just the best man for the job.

Wells talks and has a similar belief system to Chris Beard and Tim Tadlock. No clue if he can win like them but he sounds like he's cut from the same cloth.

I can now see what Hocutt saw in Matt Wells. It's a HUGE risk, especially if KSU now hires Littrell. Hocutt's hire will be directly compared to whatever Littrell can accomplish in Manhatten and somewhat to whatever Holgerson does going forward.
 

Chongo94

Active Member
1. The Double Eagle guys sold their previous company for $2.8B and have just raised another $1B for a new company. They're not '5-figure donors that think they get 7-figure donor influence'. They're T. Boone Pickens level potential donors....and they're not in their 90's, so they have plenty of earning and giving potential left.

2. They had pledged to fund the South Endzone renovation for Jones AT&T Stadium back in January, but have now threatened to pull that funding. Let's hope cooler heads prevail.

3. I have no reason to believe they made up the Holgerson thing and even better, I don't know what they stand to gain by making it all up.

If you just wanted to make up a lie to cause the most traction, hurt the AD and hurt the biggest rival possible, why not just make up a lie about Lincoln Riley instead?

The Holgerson thing had multiple separately identified sources. It was 100% accurate.



After a little more research on Wells and listening to his press conference, I'm now leaning towards Hocutt believing Matt Wells was just the best man for the job.

Wells talks and has a similar belief system to Chris Beard and Tim Tadlock. No clue if he can win like them but he sounds like he's cut from the same cloth.

I can now see what Hocutt saw in Matt Wells. It's a HUGE risk, especially if KSU now hires Littrell. Hocutt's hire will be directly compared to whatever Littrell can accomplish in Manhatten and somewhat to whatever Holgerson does going forward.

I watched a replay video of his press conference. I like him and like you, I think he does seem to share the same type of persona or at least the one that we see seems similar to the other good Tech coaches.

I’m not sure he’ll do well and again, like you, I agree that his hiring is a huge risk. But it seems certain he’s going to bring some seriousness and professionalism to the program that I think is needed.
 
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