Five In Five: Texas Tech Fans, Your Anger Towards Tommy Tuberville Is Misplaced

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In just a few short weeks the Cincinnati Bearcats will hit the field for the first time ever led by Tommy Tuberville. All eyes will be on him as sports pundits everywhere will be making note of every finger wag and helmet pat from UC’s new head coach. But for the first time in maybe ever, people in the Lubbock, Texas region will be keeping a watchful eye on Bearcats football this season. The reason is because of Tuberville’s unceremonious exit from Texas Tech nine months ago.

On December 8th, the Red Raider head coach left Lubbock for Cincinnati not 24 hours after Butch Jones took the Tennessee job. Since that day Texas Tech fans have been foaming at the mouth at the sight or sound of Tuberville. Some even went so far as to fax him a menu from the restaurant 50 Yard Line Steakhouse where he supposedly left a recruit mid-meal to come to Cincinnati. On National Signing Day. Absolute brilliance! It’s the same kind of shenanigans UC fans pulled on Brian Kelly when he bolted for Notre Dame (i.e. egging his house) but twice as creative and a thousand times more hilarious.

As innocent as that incident was, this was but a microcosm of the feelings of Red Raider nation towards Tommy Tuberville. And my main question is, why? Why the hatred? And maybe most importantly, has that anger been isolated to the last few months or since Tuberville was hired three years ago to replace the ousted Mike Leach?

I’m thinking it’s the latter.

The dismissal of Mike Leach as Texas Tech’s head coach in 2009 was a complete mess and, quite frankly, total bullshit. The reason for his firing was because Leach allegedly forced one of his players, Adam James, to stand in an electrical closet, locked him in, and made him stand in there for hours. But the problem was that those accusations were 100% false. Adam James himself even professed the same during his deposition.

"Question: Coach Leach didn’t tell you to get inside that electrical closet, did he?Adam James: Not personally, no.Question: You weren’t locked in an electrical closet for three hours, were you?Adam James: No."

And in a report by Texas Tech attorney Charlotte Bingham, who was leading the investigation on the case, she made the following claims*.

"I informed President Bailey, Chancellor Hance, Larry Anders, Jerry Turner and Gerald Myers that Mike Leach had not required Adam James to stand in an electrical closet.Adam James told me that he went into the electrical closet and that he stood in the electrical closet for approximately five minutes."

*Bingham later changed this report at the influence of Hance.

Why did James answer “no” to both of those questions? Because he chose to go in there all by himself. Yet Leach was fired because of accusations he was abusing his players. This despite reports by Texas Tech’s own legal team claiming the contrary. It was madness I tell you! So why was he fired? Because Adam’s whiny, overbearing father Craig James (maybe you’ve heard of him) partnered with Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance to throw Leach under the bus. That’s right, he was railroaded by his own administration.

In many ways his firing mirrors that of UC head basketball coach Bob Huggins except for the fact that Leach did everything right; he won a boatload of games, put Red Raiders football in the national spotlight, ran a clean program, and skyrocketed the football team’s graduation rate. What more could you ask from a head coach?

Still, on December 30th, 2009 Texas Tech officially gave Mike Leach the boot**. In my opinion it was one of the most tragic events to befall college football in the last decade. On a personal level Leach is one of my idols. He never once stepped onto the football field as a player (at any level) yet rose to become one of the most feared and admired coaches in college football. He was an out-of-the-box thinker who brought that mindset onto the gridiron in the form of his Air Raid offense and kicked ass in the process. If you can’t get behind someone like that then there’s no helping you.

**Interestingly enough, if Leach had lasted until December 31st, one day after he was fired, he would have been owed $800,000 by Texas Tech. The timing of this makes the whole situation all the stranger.

And that brings me back to my original point. I think most Red Raider fans felt a personal connection to Leach. Imagine Brian Kelly being fired after the 2009 season for being accused of something all evidence proved he didn’t do. We’d be heartbroken. But for whatever reason it seems like Texas Tech fans took their anger out on Tommy Tuberville who had the impossible task of following “the” guy. Any accomplishment was written off and any mistake was blown out of proportion.

Instead fans should have focused their anger towards others involved. Here’s the questions I have for them:

Why is Kent Hance still the university chancellor?
Why does Charlotte Bingham still have a job at Texas Tech and is continuing to teach law to students? Oh the irony!

Additionally, how do we know that Kent Hance and Craig James weren’t continuing to meddle in their head football coach’s affairs long after Leach was gone? Maybe Tommy Tuberville was dealing with the same administrative crap that drove his predecessor crazy (well, crazier). We already know he was under immense pressure from the fanbase by following a charismatic character such as Leach and if you add in the possibility of fighting with his own bosses, that would cause any sane person to find any out he could.

So while I perfectly understand Red Raider nation not embracing Tommy Tuberville, their anger towards him is absolutely misplaced. Why people like Kent Hance and Charlotte Bingham are still employed by Texas Tech University is beyond me but those are the ones fans should have directed their frustration towards. They’re the ones who went behind Mike Leach’s back and worked with Mr. Entitled Craig James of all people to get him fired. They’re the ones who brought the ugliness of a phantom scandal on their school.

Not Tommy Tuberville.

Photos courtesy Sports Illustrated and Dallas News.