Texas Tech has fired Matt Wells as football coach

Hours after a source said that Texas Tech planned to fire head football coach Matt Wells and immediately name offensive coordinator Sonny Cumbie as the interim head coach, the Red Raiders made it official.

Texas Tech formally announced both moves at approximately 2 p.m.

Although the Red Raiders are currently 5-3 this season, they are 13-17 since Wells was hired to replace Kliff Kingsbury after the 2018 season.

Wells was rumored to be in trouble after the 2020 season, but remained in place.

When Texas Tech blew a big lead and lost 25-24 against Kansas State on Saturday in Lubbock, however, Tech officials decided it was time.

Tech will owe Wells about $7 million on the remainder of his contract.

Wells was a surprise hire by Hocutt and Tech in November of 2018. Although Wells built a winner at Utah State, a notoriously difficult job, he was not awash in Texas roots.

A decent man, he just never clicked in Lubbock and for the Red Raiders who pine to return to the winning days of Mike Leach.

In Wells’ first season, the Red Raiders finished 4-8 and 2-7 in the Big 12. Last season, they were 4-6, and 3-6 in conference.

The team did not qualify for a bowl in each of his first two years, which left many prominent Red Raider fans uneasy about his ability to build a winner in Lubbock.

Although the Red Raiders began the season with a nice win at Houston, they followed that by barely avoiding an embarrassing home loss to FCS Stephen F. Austin at home.

One more win and the Red Raiders will be bowl eligible.

Tech has four games remaining, all against ranked teams: Oklahoma, Iowa State, Oklahoma State and Baylor.

Since Leach was fired in 2009, Tech has had Ruffin McNeil, Tommy Tuberville, Chris Thomsen, Kingsbury, Wells and now Cumbie serve as the head coach.

McNeil, Thomsen and Cumbie were all interims.

Since the start of the 2011 season, Tech has posted seven seasons with losing records. The Red Raiders posted consecutive 8-5 records in 2012 and ‘13.

The 2012 season was the last for Tuberville, and ‘13 was the first under Kingsbury.

The plan was Matt Wells would stabilize the position, and bring winners back to Lubbock the way Leach did in the first decade.

Didn’t happen.

Now speculation will focus on Wells’ replacement.

The list will include UTSA’s Jeff Traylor, SMU’s Sonny Dykes, and former Baylor coach Art Briles.

There is no hotter coach in college football than Traylor, who in his second season in San Antonio is 8-0 and has the Roadrunners ranked in the Top 25.

Sonny Dykes’ SMU Mustangs are again in the top 25, and he has a long blood line to Texas Tech. His father, Spike Dykes, was the Red Raiders head coach from 1986 to ‘99.

Briles, the much maligned former Baylor coach, is a Texas Tech alum and remains a topic of conversation among prominent Tech boosters.