BY DON WILLIAMS
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

In his nine years as head coach at Texas Tech, Mike Leach has established a pattern of hiring assistant coaches with whom he’s worked or with whom he’s acquainted. Eric Russell was neither, but Leach found Russell’s resume too impressive to ignore as he sought to fill a staff vacancy.

Russell, who spent the last two years at Louisiana Tech and the 13 seasons before at North Texas, has been hired by the Red Raiders. He will coach special teams, and Clay McGuire, who coached special teams last year, will take over as running backs coach. The latter position was left vacant last month with Seth Littrell’s departure.

Russell, 41, will be coaching in a BCS conference for the first time.

“Obviously, I’m extremely excited and then eager to get things going,’’ said Russell, who is scheduled to arrive in Lubbock today. “I think it’s a great opportunity. I’ve worked a long time in this profession for an opportunity like this, so I’m extremely excited to help make the Red Raiders better and looking forward to the challenge.’’

Leach said his staff did a composite ranking of the best special teams in the nation last season, and that Louisiana Tech rated No. 1. The Bulldogs ranked No. 8 in the nation in kickoff coverage, tied for 25th in punt coverage, No. 14 in punt-return average and No. 17 in kickoff-return average.

“We studied all the teams and figured out, who had the best special teams in America last year? Louisiana Tech did,’’ Leach said. “So we asked, who coaches their special teams? Is this a lucky year for him, or was he always good? At Louisiana Tech, he was. And he totally ruled at special teams at North Texas.’’

Russell’s hiring allows McGuire to coach the position he played in college — specifically the position he played in college in Leach’s system.

“We debated,’’ Leach said. “Clay’s real versatile. He can do a lot of stuff. He played running back. Starting out, we thought we were looking for a running backs coach. Then we thought, ‘What if we got a special teams coach and moved Clay to running backs?’ So it worked out well.’’

Russell, who grew up in Twin Falls, Idaho, and graduated from the University of Idaho in 1991, was a graduate assistant at his alma mater and at New Mexico. Then he was an assistant at North Texas from 1994 to 2006, coaching mostly defensive line but serving as special teams coordinator his last five years in Denton.

“I was very impressed with how he talked about special teams (during his job interview), how he drilled stuff, how he coached a lot of technique,’’ Leach said. “He’s our guy, and he recruited all around Texas for quite some time.’’

Russell said he was unaware Tech was evaluating him from afar.

“I didn’t know anybody on the staff. I didn’t know there was a job open,’’ he said. “I guess Coach Leach had some research and special teams rankings nationally in whatever system they used, and Louisiana Tech came out on top. I had a phone call at my house, and my wife answered the phone. I thought it was someone from Louisiana Tech and she said, no, Texas Tech.’’

That was a week ago, and after coming to town for an interview, Russell said he was offered the job on Monday.

Louisiana Tech went 8-5 last season. The Bulldogs scored five special-teams touchdowns — off a kickoff return, two punt returns, a blocked punt and a blocked field goal.

Russell went to Louisiana Tech before the 2007 season when Derek Dooley was hired as head coach.

“We’d been successful (on special teams) at North Texas during my tenure there,’’ Russell said. “And obviously, coach Dooley, when he took over here, one of his big emphasis was improving special teams play. He’s been a tremendous asset to be around the last couple of years.

“We showed a bunch of improvement the first year but were not where we wanted to be, but this year overall, in all phases, we were pretty good.’’