Who is----Zach Kittley.....🏈 New Kid on the Block

Taking over a college football program never is an easy task, but to do it when you’re 33 seems like another level of difficult.

Florida Atlantic University has never shied away from hiring big-name football coaches. Lane Kiffin, now the head coach at Ole Miss, took over the program in 2017 and moved on prior to the end of the 2019 season. From there, they hired Willie Taggart, a guy who had been the head coach at the University of Oregon and Florida State University. When he was fired, they hired Tom Herman, who was previously the head coach at the University of Texas. Herman was fired a few weeks ago. Besides Kiffin, hiring big-name former Power Five head coaches hadn’t really worked out.

So what did FAU do? They went in the complete other direction; they hired a guy who has never been a head coach. A guy who isn’t a wily veteran, but an untapped prodigy. That guy is Zach Kittley.

The 33-year-old is now the youngest head coach in the FBS.

Kittley comes to Boca Raton from Texas Tech, where he’s spent the majority of his career. Kittley is a Kliff Kingsbury protégée, working as a Student Assistant and Graduate Assistant with Kingsbury from 2013-2017 at Tech. From there, he was named the Offensive Coordinator and QBs coach at Houston Baptist, spending three seasons there (2018-2020). Where he really came to the forefront of conversations was in his one season at Western Kentucky.

Kittley led the Hilltoppers to become the No. 1 passing offense and No. 2 scoring offense in the FBS. That season, WKU QB Bailey Zappe threw for 5,967 yards and 62 touchdowns in just 14 games. Those of us who enjoy knowing obscure NFL QBs, Zappe is now a Cleveland Brown!

If you like an offense that throws the heck out of the ball, you’re going to look what you see in Boca Raton in the coming years. Kittley, much like Kingsbury, will absolutely chuck the ball down the field. He runs a high-powered, big play oriented, north and south offense that will stretch the field.

I’m really not sure what I’ll be doing at 33 years old, but man does this guy have an idea what he wants to do.

Read Full version of Today's Stump

Subscribe to The Daily Stump