The turnaround for Mack Leftwich seemingly happened overnight. The shift from quarterback at the University of Texas at El Paso to becoming the offensive coordinator at Texas Tech took place over the span of eight years, and with the opportunity firmly in his hands, Leftwich is aiming to make the most of it.

“I think first and foremost being a kid who grew up in Texas, I think from afar, l've always looked at this place and seen the success that it's had and seen the potential for growth,” Leftwich told the media Thursday. “It's a place where you can go and compete for championships. So, excited to be here, but yeah, that conversation with coach (Joey) McGuire and kind of his vision for the program and the culture that he's building here was something that I was really excited to be a part of.”

The final campaign of his playing career was in 2015, which saw Leftwich and the Miners come to Lubbock to suffer a blowout defeat to Patrick Mahomes and the Red Raiders early in the season.

Leftwich’s football career was cut short due to an injury, a severe shoulder ailment that forced him to sit out his final two years of eligibility at UTEP. His coaching career began from there and has offered Leftwich a different take on football for himself and for his players.

“I've known I wanted to be a coach my whole life. My dad, he's still a high school football coach, at the time, he was coaching in college. And so from the time that I was three, four years old. I never wanted to be an astronaut or be a doctor or any of that stuff. I wanted to be a football coach.

So the blessing in it was that I just got to start a little bit early, a little bit earlier. And I think going through that gives me a little bit of a unique perspective and the ability to really relate to some of our guys who are going through different situations and adversity like that.”

Leftwich is a mentee of now-North Texas coach Eric Morris, who helped elevate Leftwich’s career at Incarnate Word. While in San Antonio, Leftwich rose from the ranks of graduate assistant to offensive coordinator, helping the Cardinals become one of the Southland Conference’s most prominent offensive forces.

It was at UIW that Leftwich extended offers to current Red Raiders Will Hammond and Jacob Ponton, giving the newly-christened coordinator some sense of familiarity around the building as he starts to build relationships with those that are still around.

Leftwich’s philosophy is centered around fundamental concepts and amplifying those concepts to fire at a high rate. He has gone on to talk in-depth about the mastery of basic concepts, utilizing a variety of motion techniques to keep defenses guessing.

“We believe in attacking grass and what's cool about coming back to this place is a lot of the roots and kind of original offense that I learned from and from my mentors goes back to those Air Raid days, you know, coach (Mike) Leach, you know, throwing the ball all over the yard in that stadium. So pretty cool to come back here and be able to run the offense here. But a lot of those same principles still apply, we've kind of mixed and morphed and as l've kind of gone and learned from different people, but still the principles of playing fast, giving the receivers freedom to attack grass, and we'll do a lot of stuff, what people would call choice routes. So giving the receivers two or three different options to try to get open and a lot of that comes with timing and rhythm with the quarterbacks.

And so we want to be simple enough where we can get good at those things in the passing game. But like you talked about the window dressing, you have to have different ways to run all your base concepts to make it look a little bit different, and, you know, kind of keep the defense on its toes. So yeah, we'll get good at a couple base concepts, and then be able to build off of that package as the season goes.”

While Leftwich does hail from the coaching tree built on the Air Raid tendencies, his schemes and tendencies in the run game are nothing to scoff at, either.

At his most recent stop at Texas State, Leftwich’s offense fielded the 15th-best rushing attack in the nation, averaging over 200 yards on the ground per game.

Coupled with a passing offense that was 28th in the country at 265 yards on average, Leftwich’s balanced approach will mirror that of what Tech employed in 2024 behind the arm of Behren Morton and the legs of Tahj Brooks.

“To me, a balanced offense has the ability to attack a defense and win a game whether calling the game because you need to run it and slow the game down and and win it that way, or, you know, you might get in a shootout and throw for 450 yards and win the game that way. But, yeah, I think the physicality element of it, the toughness element and putting an emphasis on running the football will definitely be there. That's just something that I believe in. My dad is an offensive line coach. So if I said otherwise, I might not be welcome home. I believe in running the football. I think, to me, when you can run the football, I think that just that just opens up opportunities for explosive plays in the pass game.”

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