Texas Tech Football Coach Positions Announced

With the hiring of Houston defensive coordinator David Gibbs, Texas Tech and Kliff Kingsbury has also announced some staff changes, an additional hire and some of the current staff moving around a bit.

Kliff Kingsbury -- Head Coach / Quarterbacks

No change here.

Eric Morris -- Offensive Coordinator / Inside Receivers

Morris goes from coaching all of the receivers to just coaching the inside receivers, which I think is good.  It's a lot of bodies and responsibilities to coach all of the receivers and this should make life a bit easier for Morris.  Kingsbury is really the offensive coordinator and calls the plays, while Morris will continue to sit upstairs.

Mike Jinks -- Associate Head Coach / Running Backs

The new title for Jinks comes as he is the associate head coach.  Jinks is the only coach on the staff that has been a head coach at any level, as he was the head coach at Cibolo Steele before coming on board with Texas Tech.  Jinks is also an ace recruiter, maybe the best on the staff, and maybe Jinks will add a steading hand with a new title.

Lee Hays -- Offensive Line

No change.

Darrin Chiaverini -- Special Teams / Wide Receivers

Chiaverini will add the responsibility of coaching the wide receivers, which should be a natural since he played in the NFL as an outside receiver.  I think giving Chiaverini more responsibility is a good thing and I'd guess with last year being his first year on the job, he's better prepared to do more in addition to coaching special teams.

David Gibbs -- Defensive Coordinator / Safeties

Gibbs has pretty much always coached the safeties or defensive backs and because of that, it necessitates the need to move some of the defensive coaches around, namely Zac Spavital and Trey Haverty.  Texas Tech needs better play all the way around, from safety to the defensive line.

Mike Smith - Co Defensive Coordinator / Defensive Line

Smith was the linebackers coach, and really just the outside linebackers this past year. Now, he'll coach the defensive line and that should work out really well since he was primarily responsible for turning around Pete Robertson on the line and it would be fantastic if he could perform similar miracles on the defensive line.  The fact that he wants Rika Levi to lose some weight is a good thing on my end. Levi was too heavy last year and most people can't carry all that weight.

Zac Spavital - Linebackers Coach

Spavital was the defensive backs coach at Houston and he will coach the linebackers at Texas Tech. Spavital was also the recruiting coordinator at Houston and he has been at Houston since the 2008 season as a coach and was a graduate assistant at Oklahoma from 2005 through 2007. With Kevin Curtis coaching the cornerbacks, it seems natural to have him coach all of the secondary and he'll have help with Gibbs. I'm not too concerned about Spavital coaching linebackers, a position that he hasn't coached previously. If he coach coach tackling then I'm good. Rivals doesn't give credit to really any of the players for Houston in the 2015 class, but Spavital was all over the 2013 class. Spavital's biggest addition might be on the recruiting end of things.

Trey Haverty - Outside Linebackers

Haverty will share some responsibility with Spavital on the linebackers spot with Haverty coaching the outside linebackers, which would perhaps include the Bandit and Raider linebacker spots.  Haverty previously coached the safeties, but Haverty took on the role of coaching the Raider spot after Wallerstedt was let go, so maybe this will be a pretty natural transition.

Kevin Curtis - Cornerbacks

No change.