Zach Kittley (born August 14, 1991) is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

coach who is currently the

offensive coordinator An offensive coordinator is a member of the coaching staff of an American football or Canadian football team who is in charge of the team's offense. Generally, along with the defensive coordinator and the special teams coordinator, this coach re ...

and quarterbacks coach at

Texas Tech University Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sys ...

. He previously served in the same capacity at Western Kentucky University in 2021 and Houston Baptist University from 2018 to 2020.

Coaching career

Early career

Kittley initially committed to playing

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

at Abilene Christian, walking on to the team in 2011, but opted to pursue a career coaching football and transferred to

. From there, Kittley got a position on the football team as a student assistant to Sonny Cumbie. He was later promoted to graduate assistant in 2015, where he was the program's assistant quarterbacks coach and worked closely with future NFL MVP

Patrick Mahomes Patrick Lavon Mahomes II (born September 17, 1995) is an American football quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL). The son of former Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher Pat Mahomes, he initially played co ...

Houston Baptist

Kittley was hired as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Houston Baptist in 2018. At Houston Baptist, he engineered a turnaround of an offense that ranked in the bottom half of the NCAA Division I FCS division prior to his arrival to one of the top passing offenses in the country behind an Air raid offense. While at HBU, Kittley was intimately involved with the development of another quarterback prospect in

Bailey Zappe Bailey Michael Zappe (, ) (born April 26, 1999) is an American football quarterback for the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). He played his first three seasons of college football at Houston Baptist and used his last y ...

, who would play a critical role at his next coaching stop.

Western Kentucky

Kittley was named the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at

Western Kentucky Western Kentucky is the western portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It generally includes part or all of several more widely recognized regions of the state. ;Always included * The Jackson Purchase, the state's westernmost generally recogniz ...

on December 14, 2020. Zappe would follow Kittley to Western Kentucky. In Kittley's first year with Western Kentucky, the Hilltoppers offense improved from 115th in scoring among FBS teams in 2020 to 2nd in the FBS in scoring in 2021. During WKU's win in the

2021 Boca Raton Bowl The 2021 Boca Raton Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 18, 2021, with kickoff at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time Zone, EST on ESPN College Football, ESPN. It was the 8th edition of the Boca Raton Bowl, and was one of the 2021– ...

, Zappe set new single-season FBS records for passing touchdowns and yardage.

Texas Tech

Kittley was named the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at

Texas Tech Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sys ...

on December 5, 2021, joining head coach Joey McGuire in his first season.

Personal life

Kittley is the son of Wes Kittley, who has been the track and field coach at

since 2000 and was previously the track and field coach at Abilene Christian. Kittley and his wife, Emily, have two sons.

References

External links

*
Western Kentucky Hilltoppers profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kittley, Zach 1991 births Living people Houston Christian Huskies football coaches Texas Tech Red Raiders football coaches Western Kentucky Hilltoppers football coaches Sportspeople from Abilene, Texas Sportspeople from Lubbock, Texas Coaches of American football from Texas