Red Raiders Zach Kittley Named to 40 Under 40 College Sports List
The offensive side of the ball has hardly ever been an issue for the Texas Tech Red Raiders in recent years. However, as the Red Raiders enter the Joey McGuire era, that doesn't mean the offense can't be revamped and improved upon.
Last season the Red Raiders came in at 50th out of 130 FBS teams in terms of scoring, averaging a respectable 30.3 points per game, while averaging 416.5 yards of total offense per game.
Now, new offensive coordinator Zach Kittley comes in and looks to do just that, working with plenty of offensive firepower.
In his first season as an offensive coordinator at the FBS level at Western Kentucky, Kittley's offense would average a whopping 44.2 points and 536.5 yards of offense per game.
His success at Western Kentucky made him not only a sought-after hire this offseason, but landed him on The Athletic's inaugural College Sports 40 Under 40 list, highlighting some of the top young coaches, players, etc. that are changing the game.
Kittley, a 6-foot-7 former walk-on college basketball player at Abilene Christian, coached at the Football Bowl Subdivision level for the first time in 2021, directing an offense at Western Kentucky that broke the NCAA single-season record for passing yards and passing touchdowns. Auburn, Nebraska and other programs wanted to hire him last winter, but he returned home to Lubbock to lead the Texas Tech offense under new head coach Joey McGuire.
Kittley got his start as a student assistant in 2013 under Kliff Kingsbury at Texas Tech, where he helped coach Patrick Mahomes. He later became the offensive coordinator at Houston Baptist, where he found quarterback Bailey Zappe, who decamped for WKU with Kittley last season and set records. Now Kittley hopes to do the same at his alma mater.
As Kittley gets to work in his first season this fall alongside McGuire, he will do so hoping to take the Red Raiders' offense to a new level. With the talent he has to work with on the offensive side of the ball, don't be surprised if the Red Raiders quietly have one of college football's better offenses this season.
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Connor Zimmerlee is a writer and reporter for the FanNation network. Zimmerlee received his Bachelor's of Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and graduated from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism with a Master's of Science in Journalism with a Specialization in Sports Media.