Pete Kwiatkowski approaches his proving ground

Steve Sarkisian’s search for a defensive coordinator was an odd process to say the least, with defensive assistant hires coming before the coordinator pick. The result was tremendous, as he poached Washington’s Pete Kwiatkowski from the Pacific Northwest to oversee the Longhorn defense. Though his results at Texas so far are a mixed bag, his side of the ball has performed in 2022 much like his Husky defenses of old.

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Kwiatkowski helped put together several elite units in Seattle, including one that helped catapult the Huskies to two Pac-12 titles and one College Football Playoff appearance. He also checked his ego at the door for the good of the U-Dub program, ceding play-calling responsibility to Jimmy Lake in the two years prior to Chris Petersen’s sudden retirement in 2019.

The Huskies’ path to three Pac-12 North division titles during Kwiatkowski’s time in Seattle always featured a matchup with Mike Leach’s Washington State Cougars. From 2014 to 2019, the Apple Cup had major implications in the Pac-12 North, not to mention the importance of being an in-state rivalry game.

Leach has produced one of the largest branches on the Air Raid coaching tree, but he remains unique in that other coaches who learned from him have integrated a more balanced offensive approach. Leach still just passes, passes, and passes some more. His Cougar teams fielded the No. 1 passing offense in the nation in 2014, 2015, 2018, and 2019. In 2016, Wazzu boasted the No. 3 passing offense. In 2017, they claimed the No. 2 spot before Gardner Minshew helped them retake top billing the following year.

Even with prolific offenses in Pullman, Husky defenses led or co-led by Kwiatkowski simply dominated the contests between the two teams.

Year	WSU total offense	WSU YPA	WSU total offense vs. UW	WSU YPA vs. UW	Apple Cup Result
2014	517.5 ypg (No.7)	7.45	376 yards	7.24	31-13 UW
2015	469.6 ypg (No. 25)	6.88	319 yards	4.97	45-10 UW
2016	482.5 ypg (No. 18)	7.11	334 yards	5.38	45-17 UW
2017	434.8 ypg (No. 33)	6.69	345 yards	6.71	41-14 UW
2018*	451.5 ypg (No. 27)	7.17	237 yards	4.34	28-15 UW
2019*	505.2 ypg (No. 7)	8.05	339 yards	4.97	31-13 UW

No matter what Leach threw (literally) at Kwiatkowski’s defenses, PK was always a step ahead. Wazzu never topped 20 points against a defense Kwiatkowski coordinated or co-coordinated (Note: the 2020 Apple Cup was not held due to COVID-19, and Leach was at Mississippi State by that point).

The play-caller opposite Kwiatkowski this weekend, Texas Tech offensive coordinator Zach Kittley, descends from Leach’s branch of the Hal Mumme tree.

Kittley doesn’t run a carbon copy of Leach’s system. The current Red Raider play-caller’s offense is more akin to the offense utilized by Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury, who Kittley served as a student or graduate assistant under at Texas Tech from 2013 to 2017.

During Kingsbury’s six years in Lubbock, including three seasons with Patrick Mahomes, the Tech offenses averaged 49 passes per game to 28 rushes per contest. That makes sense considering Kingsbury’s upbringing playing for Leach, the presence of a talent like Mahomes, and a pretty consistent trend of playing in close games or having to come from behind.

In comparison, Leach averaged 52 passes per game over 20 runs per contest during the apex of his tenure at Washington State in 2018.

Kittley’s track record as a play-caller over the past four years is pretty similar. In full seasons with quarterback Bailey Zappe at Houston Baptist and Western Kentucky, Kittley threw the ball 47 times per game and rushed it 29 times per game. With Zappe leading HBU (or beginning yesterday, HCU) against Texas Tech in 2020, the Huskies almost pulled the upset over Matt Wells’ team with a 51-24 ratio.

Last year at WKU, the ratio was an even 2:1 with 50 passes to 25 rushes per game. In three games at Tech in 2022, Kittley’s offense has posted a 46:33 average pass-to-run ratio.

Though Red Raider quarterback Donovan Smith is a different type of quarterback compared to Leach’s Wazzu signal-callers like Minshew, Luke Falk, Tyler Hilinski, or Anthony Gordon, the premise of the TTU offense under Kittley closely mirrors those Kwiatkowski stopped on the Puget Sound and the Palouse.

This weekend, Kwiatkowski walks into another opportunity to stifle a similar Air Raid offense his Husky defenses of the mid-to-late 2010s dominated time and time again. He’ll be wearing burnt orange instead of purple, and the play-caller opposite him has a slightly different philosophy than that of the Pirate.

In other words, it’s an opportunity to do again what he was widely known for, which made him an appealing hire for Sarkisian early in his tenure. It’s a big proving ground for the Texas defensive coordinator, but one he knows well.