Wells Stays, Yost Out at Texas Tech Football
After a week of wild speculation, it seems like head coach Matt Wells[1] will return to Texas Tech football in 2021, but not without a major firing within his staff.
The school’s athletics department confirmed the news via press release Monday (December 14th) just after noon. Offensive Coordinator David Yost, who followed Wells from Utah State in 2019, has officially been fired.
“Texas Tech head coach Matt Wells announced Monday he has relieved offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach David Yost of his duties, effective immediately,” the press release said.
Wells touted Yost as a “true professional” in his comments about the decision.
“This is a difficult decision, but I recognize that I have a responsibility to our players, to our fans and to our administration to do what is best for our program as we move forward. Sometimes change is necessary, and I feel like this is one of those times,” Wells said in a statement.
KAMC News’ David Collier broke the news shortly before the school alerted the media.
The regression of the offense, even with the crazy offseason, generated the firing, which was fanned by a silent athletic department.
In 2020, Wells was returning three starters on the interior of the offensive line, a starting running back, his QB, and the entire starting wide receiver corps. Wells and offensive coordinator David Yost also got a QB transfer, Henry Colombi, that knew the offense from his time at Utah State.
Even with all those returners the offense never got going and finished with an absolute dud against Kansas. A win, but only scoring 16 points against a defense that was giving up more than 50 points per game is really bad.
QB Alan Bowman[2] has regressed under Matt Wells; playmaker TJ Vasher was hardly used this season; and leading receiver Erik Ezukanma was calling out the offensive coordinator[3] during the Kansas game and during the postgame press conference.
As far as Wells goes, the players also couldn’t have loved his press conferences this season.