TUBERVILLE NEXT TEXAS TECH COACH

Former Mississippi and Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville has been hired as the next head football coach at Texas Tech, the university announced Saturday.

A news conference to introduce Tuberville will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday in the United Spirit Arena. It is closed to the public, Tech officials said. Tuberville was getting ready to fly to Lubbock Saturday afternoon and said university officials had instructed him not to discuss his hiring until Sunday.

Tuberville will have a five-year contract, a source told the A-J.

The future of Tech’s assistant coaches is up in the air. They are scheduled to meet with Tuberville on Saturday night.

Former Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum said he thinks Tuberville is an ideal choice for a program that has won 29 games in the last three years.

“I think that’s a good fit,” said Slocum, who once had Tuberville on his staff. “He’s not one of those guys that feels like he has to come in and tear everything down and put his stamp on it. I don’t see him being that kind of ego guy.

“He’s smart enough to know … They’ve been pretty dang impressive to me, and I think he’d have the same opinion. He can probably lend a little help to the defensive side and shore that up and then kind of keep the scheme offensively, so I think it’s a really good fit.”

Tuberville told the A-J last Sunday that he wouldn’t radically alter what the Red Raiders have been doing on offense under Mike Leach.

“It’d be crazy to change it,” he said. “That’s a trademark of Texas Tech now. It’s helped put them on the map. It’s helped in recruiting, I’ve noticed.”

Slocum hired Tuberville to be Texas A&M’s defensive coordinator in 1994 after Bob Davie left to become defensive coordinator at Notre Dame. At the time, Slocum said he wanted someone to just keep the defense then known as the “Wrecking Crew” pointed in the same direction.

“We had good (assistants) there. I just needed a coordinator, someone to head up the defense and lead it,” Slocum said. “That sounds like a simple thing, but it doesn’t always work out that way. You get someone who wants to change everything, do this and do that, and you end up taking a step backward. The kids played for him and liked him. The other coaches liked him. He came right in and we didn’t miss a beat.”

A&M went 10-0-1 that season, which led to Tuberville getting his first head-coaching job the next year at Ole Miss.

Tuberville interviewed with Tech officials on Tuesday, spending about seven hours on campus. He told the A-J he “aggressively went after the job” for several reasons, among them he thought West Texas fit his personality and he thought his experience recruiting in Texas would make for a smoother transition. In addition to his season at A&M, he said he recruited Dallas and Houston while he was a Miami (Fla.) assistant from 1986 through 1993.

Tuberville used an old Bum Phillips line to describe what he thinks of the Red Raiders’ potential: “Tech has got their foot in the door. I think Tech needs somebody to kick that door in.”

Tuberville, 55, is 110-60 in 14 seasons as a college head coach. His 2004 Auburn team finished 13-0 and was ranked second in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll.

During his 10-season tenure at Auburn, Tuberville went 85-40. The man he’ll replace, fired Tech coach Mike Leach, went 84-43 in 10 seasons with the Red Raiders. Tuberville led the Tigers to eight winning seasons in a row from 2000 through 2007, but he stepped down in December 2008 after going 5-7.

In addition to plunging into the Big 12 Conference, Tuberville will have to sell himself to his new players, most of whom had their heart set on interim head coach Ruffin McNeill getting the job.

“He’s a great coach, a great guy, a great motivator,” Tech middle linebacker Brian Duncan said after the hiring was announced. “It’s pretty disappointing, but that’s the job. We’re just going to have to move on.”

McNeill coached Tech to a 41-31 victory against Michigan State last Saturday in the Alamo Bowl, then became first to interview for the job two days later. Tech quarterback Steven Sheffield said Friday that at least 90 percent of the team wanted McNeill to be hired.

With a different decision being made, Duncan said, “We can’t let it affect us.”

“It’s time to get to work now,” he said. “We’ve got a head coach, and we have to get work and be able to adapt to whatever he brings in and play our game, play Red Raider football.”

Tuberville is a native of Camden, Ark., who was a college defensive back at Southern Arkansas.

Story courtesy of www.redraiders.com