It was four years ago this week that Matt Wells was fired from his job as Texas Tech football head coach two-thirds of the way through his third season.
This weekend will be only 10 months since he stopped receiving checks from Texas Tech. Both sides will informally commemorate the occasion on Saturday, Nov. 1, with Wells facing his old program when Kansas State (4-4, 3-2 in the Big 12) hosts No. 13 Texas Tech (7-1, 4-1) in a 2:30 p.m. Big 12 game at Bill Snyder Family Stadium in Manhattan, Kansas.
Wells is in his second year on the Kansas State staff as associate head coach and quarterbacks coach. He was promoted from co-offensive coordinator to offensive coordinator after last season, making him the chief overseer and sounding board for Avery Johnson, the Wildcats’ dual-threat quarterback.
Between Nov. 1, 2021, and Jan. 2, 2025, Tech made monthly payments to Wells that totaled $6,659,019.85, less taxes and withholding. Tech provided the information in response to a recent open-records request from the Avalanche-Journal.
Wells was in the third year of a six-year contract when athletics director Kirby Hocutt dismissed him. Owed 70% of the deal’s remaining value at the time, the buyout obligation was nearly $7.4 million. A clause in the contract required Wells to continue seeking employment at a market rate to help offset the buyout.
Wells, in 2022 and 2023, was on the Oklahoma staff as an offensive analyst, a job that paid $50,000 a year. Last year at Kansas State, he was paid $537,000, according to records maintained by USA TODAY Sports.
The gross amount of Tech’s first payment to Wells after his dismissal was $34,353.33 on Nov. 1, 2021. From Dec. 1, 2021, through Jan. 2, 2024, Tech’s monthly payments to Wells ranged in gross amounts between $180,833 and $186,666. After Kansas State hired Wells in January 2024, Tech’s gross monthly payments to him were $163,161 on Feb. 1, 2024, followed by 11 equal gross monthly payments of $154,416 from March 1, 2024, through Jan. 2, 2025.
Wells went 13-17 with Tech, including 7-16 in the Big 12. The Red Raiders were 5-3 and 2-3 when he was fired in 2021. The move came two days after the Red Raiders blew a 24-10 lead in a 25-24 home loss to Kansas State, which entered the game with an eight-game losing streak in conference play.
From a Tech athletics budget standpoint, total operating expenses were $136.3 million in fiscal year 2023 and $126.7 million in fiscal year 2024. The athletics operating budget for the current fiscal year is $164.2 million.
In the context of coaches’ buyouts in 2025, Tech might think it got off cheap.
According to data released this week by CBS Sports on buyouts to fired coaches, Brian Kelly is due $53.8 million from LSU, James Franklin $49 million from Penn State, and Billy Napier $21.2 million from Florida. They were all let go in October. The college football buyout chart topper continues to be Jimbo Fisher, who was owed $76.8 million when Texas A&M fired him in November 2023, according to CBS Sports.
When Tech fired Kliff Kingsbury after the 2018 season, the total cost to Tech athletics was just less than $6.6 million. That included buyout payments to Kingsbury of $4,283,807 — the $283,807 in January 2019, followed by $1.95 million in January 2020 and $2.05 million in January 2021.
It also included severance to 16 other former staff members after the coaching change.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Matt Wells’ buyout as Texas Tech football coach is complete. Here’s the bill.
Reporting by Don Williams, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
