Florida Atlantic has made a decision on who is going to be their next Head football coach. Sources have confirmed to FAU Owls Nest that Texas Tech OC Zach Kittley has agreed to a deal that will make him the new Hagerty Family Head Football Coach.
He replaces former Coach Tom Herman, who was fired midway through his second season, after putting together a 6-16 record through almost 2 full years. He becomes the 7th full-time head coach in FAU history and is the first hire since Charlie Partridge to have no head coaching experience.
Kittley comes to the Owls after 3 seasons in Lubbock where he led a high octane offense, which this past season averaged the 6th highest points per game in the country with 37.4 and the 8th highest yards per game at 453. Kittley has a heavy Air Raid background which you see in his offense at Texas Tech, as he got his coaching start in 2013 as a student assistant to Sonny Cumbie who was serving as the co-offensive coordinator and WRs coach at Texas Tech under Air Raid savant Kliff Kingsbury.
Following a year as a student assistant, Kittley became a graduate assistant at Texas Tech from 2015-2017, also serving as an assistant quarterbacks coach where he worked hands on with Patrick Mahomes and Davis Webb during his time in Lubbock.
After his 4 years in various assistant roles at Texas Tech, Kittley was hired as the offensive coordinator at Houston Baptist university, an FCS school where he overhauled their offense from 2018-2020, turning what was a bottom half FCS offense into a high powered air-raid machine. During his time there, he worked directly with QB Bailey Zappe who flourished in his system and also played a huge part in Kittley’s next career move.
Following his time at Houston Baptist, Kittley went on to spend the 2021 season at Western Kentucky, coming along with Zappe to overhaul the WKU offense in similar fashion that they did at Houston Baptist. Zappe went on to set FBS records in passing touchdowns and yardage in 2021, dominating once again in Kittley’s system and leading WKU to a 59-38 victory over App State in the Boca Raton Bowl.
After a successful 2021 campaign at WKU, Kittley arrived at his most recent stop, joining 1st year Head Coach Joey McGuire at Texas Tech, returning to Lubbock this time as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Kittley has spent 3 successful offensive seasons at Texas Tech running his Air Raid offense, seeing success both through the air and on the ground, leading a unit that had 2900 or more team passing yards and 1900 or more team rushing yards over the past 2 seasons.
Kittley has spent a majority of his career in Texas, as the new Owls Head Coach was born in Abilene, originally walking on to play basketball at Abilene Christian, before embarking on his coaching journey which started at Texas Tech. At only 33 years old, Kittley becomes the youngest Head Coach in the FBS and fits the up-and-coming coordinator mold that many teams look for in a head coaching search.
With Kittley now on board the next step will be assembling a staff and considering his age, lack of Florida ties and offensive focus, it’s possible that the Owls look to hire a tenured defensive coordinator who has Florida recruiting ties. With National Signing Day this Wednesday, Kittley will have to not only worry about hiring a staff, but also evaluating recruits, a majority of which are from Florida.
The Owls led a large-scale coaching search, as they were rumored to have interviewed Ole Miss OC Charlie Weis, Louisville OC Brian Brohm, along with SMU OL coach Garin Justice and others. Now FAU has their next head man and Kittley and Co. will get to work immediately, assembling a staff and evaluating the current roster along with recruits.
Kittley will work to bring success back to paradise, as the Owls have not reached a Bowl Game since 2021 and will look to get back there quickly under the new regime.
