Texas Football: Todd Orlando joins Texas Tech as DC under Matt Wells

A Big 12 foe of the Texas football program, the Texas Tech Red Raiders, added former DC Todd Orlando to their staff in the same position on Jan. 8.

After the regular season finale win over the Texas Tech Red Raiders back at the end of the month of November, the Texas football program made the move to fire former defensive coordinator Todd Orlando. While Orlando had really been staffed alongside head coach Tom Herman since his days with the Houston Cougars football program, this change seemed necessary.

The defense for the Texas Longhorns football program just wasn’t up to par, or even close during the regular season. Texas did have a rash of injuries on the defensive side of the ball throughout most of the regular season, but that was no excuse for the way they played in a loss to the TCU Horned Frogs and a near-huge upset loss at the hands of the Kansas Jayhawks (Longhorns gave up 48 points at home).

It is ironic where Orlando landed after his time under Herman with the Longhorns was over. According to The Football Scoop, Orlando will serve as a co-defensive coordinator under head coach Matt Wells at Texas Tech. Orlando will serve as co-defensive coordinator on the Texas Tech coaching staff alongside former linebackers coach Keith Patterson.

Patterson will move over to co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach. Meanwhile Orlando will now be the linebackers coach and assistant head coach, along with the co-defensive coordinator.

This season was the first for Wells at the helm in Lubbock with the Texas Tech program. Wells and the Red Raiders got off to a good start, but couldn’t finish down the stretch. That sounds very familiar with the usual narrative that former head coach Kliff Kingsbury established during his time in Lubbock. And Kingsbury is now the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals in the NFL.

However, this will be incredibly weird to see Orlando as the defensive coordinator with a rival Big 12 program that Texas faces at least once each season. But Orlando will at least be joining a familiar face, since he was on staff with the Utah State Aggies for two years under Wells.

This will be the sixth stop as a defensive coordinator at the FBS level in college football. He’s also served as defensive coordinator with the Florida International Panthers and UConn Huskies. Add that to a list that includes Houston, Texas, Utah State, and now Texas Tech, and you get a wide array of challenges that Orlando has and will take on.

Texas Tech finished up the 2019 season with a record of 4-8 (2-7 Big 12). Meanwhile Texas wrapped up their 2019 campaign with a record of 8-5 (5-4 Big 12), with a win in the Alamo Bowl over the Utah Utes on Dec. 31. Texas beat Utah in the Alamo Bowl without the recently hired Texas Tech defensive coordinator Orlando on staff.