Texas Tech finds its offensive coordinator

With football season inching ever closer, Red Raider fans have been growing anxious about missing positions in the Texas Tech coaching staff. Today it has been confirmed that the offensive coordinator position will be filled by Coach Kevin Johns, out of Western Michigan.

Kevin Johns, OC (+inside WR)

Johns is a guy who makes a lot of sense fit-wise. He was an assistant under Kevin Wilson at Indiana for six seasons, and they ran a ton of spread concepts and had a pretty explosive offense, especially once Johns became the full time OC in 2013-16. From his bio page at Western Michigan:

During his tenure at Indiana, the Hoosiers offense set 54 school records, including points, total yardage, passing yardage and rushing yardage in a single season. His unit topped the Big Ten in passing offense in 2012, 2013 and 2015. From 2012-15, IU was first in the Big Ten in passing yardage, second in total yardage, and fourth in rushing yardage per game. In 2016, the team was second in passing and third in total yardage.

Johns showed the ability to create a balanced offense in 2015 when the Hoosiers became the fourth team in FBS history with a 3,500-yard passer, two 1,000-yard rushers and one 1,000-yard receiver in the same year. That year, IU led the Big Ten in total offense, scoring offense and passing offense, becoming the first B1G team since Ohio State in 1995 to do so.

In 2014, Johns’ unit set the program single-season record with 3,163 rushing yards and averaged 263.6 rushing yards per game (ninth nationally, and third in the Big Ten) in 2014. It came a year after the Hoosiers were one of six teams (Baylor, Colorado State, Florida State, Marshall and Oregon) nationally to rank in the top 30 in scoring, total, passing and rushing offense and one of three programs (Baylor and Florida State) to average over 300 passing yards and 200 rushing yards in 2013.

The 2013 Hoosier offense also became the first team in Big Ten history and the only team in the FBS with five 1,000-yard pass-catchers playing together at one time led by Latimer who earned second team All-Big Ten honors and closed out his career tied for fourth in 100-yard games (7th) and seventh in yardage (2,042) and catches (135) on the Indiana all-time lists. Wynn finished second in the B1G and tied for 19th nationally with 11 touchdowns, which ranks third on the IU single-season chart.

Johns was the wide receivers coach at Indiana before he was the QBs coach, and he was pretty well respected as one of the best WR coaches in the Big 10 when he was. This would be a hire that checks a lot of boxes schematically and experience-wise. Coach Johns, according to his twitter profile, is going to be in charge of the inside wide receivers while he is at Tech.

Only time will tell about the effectiveness of this hire, but for now all we can do is give Coach Johns a solid guns up! Welcome to Texas Tech.