Kliff Kingsbury, the former Texas Tech and Arizona Cards head coach and a disciple of Mike Leach and his Air Raid Offense, was interviewed for the Eagles' offensive coordinator opening on Tuesday, according to NFL Network's Mike Garafolo.
Kingsbury, currently a senior offensive analyst at USC, is the first name to emerge for the job that Brian Johnson held last year.
Kingsbury, 44, was Texas Tech's head coach from 2013 to 2018 and coached Patrick Mahomes during his three years in Lubbock, from 2014 to 2016. He coached at USC under Lincoln Riley, who was Jalen Hurts' head coach at Oklahoma in 2019.
Kingsbury was a quarterback at Texas Tech in the late 1990s and early 2000s, playing three years for Leach's high-powered pass-first offense and setting seven NCAA records along the way.
He spent four years moving from the Patriots to the Saints and the Broncos to the Jets and the Bills and also had stints in the World League and the CFL before beginning his coaching career in Houston in 2008 as an offensive quality control coach and then offensive coordinator began quarterbacks coach under Kevin Sumlin.
When Sumlin became the head coach at Texas A&M in 2012, he brought Kingsbury with him. After a year at A&M, Kingsbury received his first head coaching opportunity at his alma mater, Texas Tech. He went 35-40 in six seasons at Tech and was fired after the 2018 season.
He joined Clay Helton's USC staff as offensive coordinator, but left USC just weeks later to become the Cards' head coach, replacing Steve Wilks, who was fired after one season.
The Cards went 28-37-1 in four years under Kingsbury but had top-10 offenses in 2020 and 2021. Haason Reddick was on these Cards teams in 2019 and 2020.
Kingsbury was released after the 2022 season and in his first year at USC, the Trojans posted an 8-5 record but finished third in the BCS with 41.8 points per game, with Caleb Williams rushing for 3,600 yards with 30 touchdowns -threw passes.
The run-the-ball crowd won't like Kingsbury, a Leach disciple whose teams at Texas Tech and Washington State set virtually every NCAA passing record in Leach's Air Raid offense. During his four years in Arizona, the Cards passed the seventh most in the NFL.
In a conference call with Philadelphia media before last year's Eagles-Cards game, Kingsbury praised Nick Sirianni.
“I think Nick and Shane Steichen build (the offense) around Jalen (Hurts) and obviously bring in great pieces, but the way they then adapted to his skill set and really maximized it (was impressive) ” he said to a story on SI.com
“It’s impressive to be able to adapt, build and develop with Jalen. You can tell in the culture that these guys are having fun and playing hard for him, so Nick did a great job there.”
In his playing career, Kingsbury played in just one game, completing one of two passes for the Jets in the final seconds of a 27-0 loss to the Broncos in Denver. His only career completion came on a 4th-and-21 for 17 yards to Dante Ridgeway.
The Eagles had the No. 8 offense in the NFL last year but were under 20 points in five of their last seven games, including the 32-9 wild-card loss to the Bucs that also sealed the fate of Johnson as defensive coordinator Sean Desai and Matt Patricia.
Whoever replaces Johnson will be the Eagles' third offensive coordinator in three years. The Eagles had the league's third-best offense in 2022 under Shane Steichen, who became the Colts' head coach after the Super Bowl.
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