Texas Tech's Kliff Kingsbury counting on hard work, pedigree more than looks

EL PASO, Texas – To say Lubbock is in the middle of nowhere sounds derisive. It shouldn't though.

There is something to be said for the middle of nowhere, or at least the middle of West Texas, what with the oil derricks and cattle farms and rugged landscapes and vast open land and big-time sunsets and "the people," Kliff Kingsbury said. "The people are so friendly, I got that the first time I visited. It's why I went here."

It's a pretty nice place to live if you're not concerned about how quickly you can drive to some big city.

At the center of it all is Texas Tech in general and Texas Tech athletics in particular and Texas Tech football most specifically.

And in the center of that is Kingsbury, who has loved Lubbock and Tech since he first laid eyes on it coming out of New Braunfels, a small – especially when he was growing up – town outside of San Antonio. He played quarterback for the Red Raiders from 1998-2002.

So he appreciates Lubbock but understands, as the school does, that the place could use a bit of excitement, some kind of cool, to lure in recruits. So when the school hired Kingsbury well before his 34th birthday to take over starting the 2013 season, they embarked on using his youth, and looks, as a marketing tool.

The guy is single, looks like Ryan Gosling and carries himself with a flare that, well, Bob Stoops and Art Briles and Gary Patterson simply can't match.

A prominent booster once even suggested in a letter to an athletic department official that the school hire a stylist, give him a nickname such as "GQ" or "Hollywood" and use an L.A. branding firm to make him a B-list celebrity, maybe get him on the Grammys or New York fashion week or something.

"We need to craft his image," the booster, Stephen Spiegelberg, wrote in 2013. "We can brand [Tech] as the hippest school in the game. Swagger on and off the field. It will draw stars to Lubbock and the program."

It turns out Kingsbury was fine on his own. None of that was done. He freely acknowledges though that when it comes to getting national attention and buzz, he hasn't played anything down. He's willing to claim he's flirted with the mothers of some recruits and isn't above playing along with adoring female fans by sending back autograph pictures that pretend they'd been dating.

"You have to be creative," he told Yahoo Sports last week while having dinner the night before Tech's game against UTEP.

It's also, well, fun and funny and there should be room for that in college football also.

There is also room for more when it comes to Kingsbury than just a scruffy beard and self-deprecating, ladies' man jokes.

He just may be an excellent football coach and if he's not there yet, there is nothing he is more focused on right now than becoming one.

The downside to hiring a young guy with no head coaching experience is he needs time to grow into the job. Neither Nick Saban nor Bill Belichick were putting together perfect seasons in their mid-30s. There's a learning curve.

What is apparent inside Tech however, not to mention to anyone who has known Kingsbury dating back to even high school, is that this is a football-lifer, someone completely driven to win. Don't let the smile fool you.

He may be a bachelor but he's at the Tech football facility by 4:30 most mornings to work out and begin the tasks of the day, a way, he says, to show his team he is willing to do even more than he demands of it. The players arrive for morning lift at 5:30 a.m., just as Kingsbury is finishing up. He works into the early evening, has a passion for studying film and drawing up plays and usually is asleep fairly early, his free time consumed by messaging recruits.

It's all football, all the time.

"This is my life," Kingsbury said. "I don't know if I could do it like this with a family. I have one focus and that's my players."

He's 10-5 overall at Tech and 2-0 this year, although neither win was overwhelming, a listless 42-35 victory over Central Arkansas and a to-the-wire 30-26 triumph at UTEP. Still, 2-0 is 2-0.

Up next is a three-game swing that could set the tone for the Red Raiders' season: Arkansas at home, at Oklahoma State, at Kansas State.

It's ridiculous to call this a defining stretch of his career, because at his age and with his promise there is plenty of time to grow even if he loses them all. However, he could certainly make a major statement about what's possible.

One thing that stands out about Kingsbury is the impressive level of experience and mentorship he's received despite being so young.

It started by watching his father coach others, and later Kliff himself, at New Braunfels High School. "I learned early on the time commitment needed as a coach," Kliff said.

He played at Tech for Mike Leach, just as he was spinning heads and scoreboards with the innovative spread offense. "I learned to challenge the status quo and that the old way of doing things isn't the only way."

He threw for more than 10,000 yards and wound up for a year with the New England Patriots, where even though he didn't play he got to learn from not just Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, but was around a host of future NFL and college head coaches such as Romeo Crennel, Eric Mangini, Josh McDaniels and Charlie Weis.

"Incredible experience," Kingsbury said. "The thing about Coach Belichick was he knew everything, he was prepared for every single thing that could pop up during a game or during the week. I learned about his level of preparation."

The following year Kingsbury hooked on with the New Orleans Saints, and coach Jim Haslett and offensive coordinator Mike McCarthy, now headman in Green Bay. The following season he went to the New York Jets where Herm Edwards was the head coach and current Buffalo Bills coach Doug Marrone was an assistant.

"The thing I remember about Coach Edwards was his motivational speeches," Kingsbury said with a laugh. "He could really get going. I'd like to say I took that from him but I can't do it as well as he can."

Kingsbury said he didn't model his coaching philosophy from any single one of those NFL coaches. He took something from all of them. As a backup, he had time to study not just what they were teaching but how they were teaching it.

And there's more. He quickly became an assistant at the University of Houston, where he hooked up again with then-assistant Dana Holgorsen, who coached him at Tech and is now at West Virginia. When Kevin Sumlin replaced Briles in '08, he eventually promoted Kingsbury to offensive coordinator and then took him along to Texas A&M to get the most out of Johnny Manziel. He's a full believer in the spread offense, naturally.

All of this came by age 34, when Tech hired him.

Finding a better, or at least more name-rich time of apprenticeship for a young coach is almost impossible.

"I've been very lucky," Kingsbury said. "I've tried to grab something from every one of those guys."

Now, he tries to make it all work together here at the start of a big stretch in Year 2 for his surging program. Again, this is, by no means, make or break. It is, however, a chance to show the background that prepared him for the Big 12 at an early age.

Because nothing is better than winning to lure recruits out to Lubbock.