Texas Tech 'a special place' for Arizona offensive coordinator Seth Doege

However, Doege won't be going into the home locker room at Galaxy Stadium in Lubbock, Texas, as the star quarterback for the Texas Tech Red Raiders; he'll be a visiting coach, hoping that his alma mater and dream school loses to the Arizona Wildcats on Saturday. 

Arizona's offensive coordinator was a standout quarterback for the Red Raiders from 2008-12 and grew up 15 minutes down the road from the TTU football facility. Doege is one of the best quarterbacks in Texas Tech history.  

"It was a special place to me," Doege said. "Playing quarterback at Texas Tech was literally my dream and goal as a little kid. ... Not only did I go to every home game, I went to every practice I could." 

Doege is expecting over 30-plus family members and friends to be in attendance for No. 22 Arizona's battle with 13th-ranked Texas Tech on Halloween. 

"I'll have guys in the stands who were former teammates and were in my wedding and they're cheering against me," Doege said. "This will be unique." 

'Just another oil field in Texas' 

Odessa Permian High School (Texas), the school featured in the book and movie "Friday Night Lights," "was the king of West Texas football and it meant a lot to those people," Doege said. 

Doege didn't play at Permian, but his childhood was similar to what is depicted in the movie. It's West Texas. It's oil fields in small towns where people live and breathe football.

Football is a religion and a way of life in Texas, but in West Texas? Towns shut down to be at the game Friday night. Players eventually become teachers, coaches, business owners or sheriff's deputies who continue supporting the program they played for. 

"In that West Texas area, football is everything," Doege said. 

Doege's father, Randy, was the head football coach of Iraan High School and his mother, Melinda, was a teacher, "so we were connected to the school and everything evolved around football," said Arizona's offensive coordinator. 

"Just another oil field in Texas where football is important," Randy Doege said. "West Texas football was phenomenal. We happened to be at a place that was very successful, so they loved it. The town would shut down." 

Randy Doege and his staff at Iraan, which is about a three-hour drive from Lubbock, were "at the field house 24 hours a day, every day," he said.

"We always made sure our kids were welcome at the field house," Randy Doege said. "We were always there." 

Seth Doege and his friends in elementary school often brought sleeping bags to the 50-yard line of Iraan's field and spent the night at the stadium. 

Some of Doege's fondest memories as a kid were being a ball boy for Iraan and sitting with Randy in the front row of the team bus for away games.

"He rode with me, but he also found his way to the back of the bus," Randy Doege said. "I'm not sure what happened back there, but I'm hoping it was all educational. I'm sure it wasn't all football." 

Before every away game, an elderly gentleman — around 80 years old — who worked at the town's post office would jog in front of the bus with a tomahawk — since Iraan's mascot is the Braves — and lead the team down a road. 

"He would run all the way through the town in front of the bus and lead us off," Doege said. 

Sometimes the team bus would "come up on the outside of town and there would be three or four dads on horseback, riding beside the bus," Randy said. "Big games when you won, the road would be lined up with cars on the way in. It was just a fun experience." 

Doege also saw the negative side effects of a rabid fanbase, like losing a playoff game — the only loss of the season — and coming home to a "for sale" sign in the front yard of the Doege house. A "for sale" sign was put in after Iraan finished a season 13-1. Randy Doege had a 95-18 record over nine years at Iraan and Crane High School. 

"As a fifth grader, you're thinking, 'Whoa, this is real,' " Doege said. "Football is just that important to those people in that area. If you can't do it, they'll find somebody who can. That's their mentality." 

When Doege wasn't playing football, he played basketball and was a pole vaulter. 

"In the summer, it was golf, fishing, hunting or anything that had anything to do with outdoors," Randy Doege said. "Several miles of river we can fish at. A lot of ranchers were good to us, so we had lots of acres that we could hunt on.

"The deer, there so many, at night would fill up our yards and the whole community. It's just a way of life. That's the oil field part of Texas; hunting and fishing is just a part of that world."

Choosin' Texas ... Tech

Doege wasn't a Texas Tech fan initially. He wanted to play for Nebraska and play for the "blackshirts," which is a longtime nickname for the Cornhuskers’ starting defensive players because they don black practice jerseys. 

Doege was a linebacker and safety, but once he saw Texas Tech quarterback Kliff Kingsbury throw for 500 yards in a game, "he fell in love with throwing the football," Randy said. Kingsbury played in head coach Mike Leach's air-raid offense, a stark contrast to the Wing-T offense Randy was running. 

"Everybody in Texas and our part of the world wanted to be Odessa Permian and that's what they were doing," Randy Doege said of the Wing-T. "That's what you do when you have kids who aren't quite big enough and not quite fast enough, but there was a way to win. The Wing-T was the way." 

Doege thought Wing-T "was football and then I saw Kliff Kingsbury throw for about 500 (yards) and said, 'That's what I want to do right there,' " he said.

Going into his sophomore year at Crane, Doege participated in a football camp at Texas Tech and "he lit the camp up. He had a great camp," Randy said.

The kid from West Texas garnered attention from the pirate. 

"I looked over and saw Coach Leach and seven coaches are heading my way," Randy Doege said. "I look behind me because I wanted to figure out who they wanted to talk to. That's when they offered him. It was a surreal moment. Leach was so good. We could go to any practice we wanted, including (Seth's) mom.

"Leach is a wonderful man, but his language is very colorful, so mom only made it to about two of those (practices) and that was it. Seth would always tell her, 'Don't listen to that, listen to what he's saying. The man is a genius.'"

Doege was trending towards becoming a highly touted recruit until two devastating knee injuries sidelined him for his junior and senior seasons, when he transferred to Frenship High School just outside of Lubbock. Doege had over 40 scholarship offers. 

"After his second knee surgery, that list was down to five," Randy Doege said. 

Doege knew his scholarship options decreasing was a part of the game. Sometimes programs don't take chances on injury-prone players. 

"I listened to him call Mike Leach and say, 'Coach, I understand if you need to take the scholarship back,' " Randy Doege said.

"Leach denied and said, 'You're my guy. You've always been my guy. You'll always be my guy,'" he added. "We're fortunate to have a wonderful surgeon in Lubbock and he told us to keep those knee braces on both knees for one year and throw them away. That's what we did and it worked out just fine. ... Honoring a scholarship they didn't have to honor, we're forever indebted for that opportunity." 

Playing for the pirate

Doege signed with Texas Tech — the alma mater of his parents — in 2008 to play for Leach, who died exactly two years before Doege accepted the offensive coordinator job at Arizona last year.

Tommy Tuberville was Doege’s coach at TTU from 2010-12 after Leach was fired. In four seasons at TTU, Doege passed for 8,636 yards, 69 touchdowns and 26 interceptions with a 69% completion rate.

Before his senior season, Doege was roommates with former Arizona quarterback Nick Foles at Manning Passing Academy. 

Doege finished his senior season third in college football in passing yards (4,205), second in touchdown passes (39) and was a Davey O’Brien Award finalist. Doege has the fifth-most career passing yards in TTU history behind Graham Harrell, Kingsbury, Patrick Mahomes and Behren Morton. 

"The style of football Leach brought to this program and once I got around him, I fell in love with who he was and his mentality and how unique he was and how he simplified the game and how he stayed true to who he was no matter what others were saying," Doege said. "He was somebody I wanted to play for, so it was special to get a couple of years under my belt with him."

Tuberville, who's now the senator of Alabama, "was really good to me," Doege said. Former West Virginia head coach Neal Brown and Louisiana Tech head coach Sonny Cumbie were on Tuberville's staff and became coaching mentors for Doege.

Some of Doege's most memorable games at Texas Tech include leading the Red Raiders to an upset win over third-ranked Oklahoma, snapping the Sooners' 39-game winning streak in Norman. Doege also had a combined 13 touchdowns in back-to-back wins over No. 5 West Virginia and No. 23 TCU — a triple-overtime thriller in Fort Worth. 

Doege was named MVP of the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas after leading the Red Raiders to a come-from-behind win over Minnesota in 2012, which was his final game at TTU. 

"Coach Doege was an amazing player. It's funny to hear those stories of Coach Leach and that experience," said Arizona head coach Brent Brennan. "He had a great career there …

"It was a dream come true for him to play there. There's a ton of respect for that program from Doege, from all of us." 

A coach is born

Doege went undrafted and signed with the Atlanta Falcons for training camp, but was eventually waived. Doege briefly worked in corporate insurance, but it wasn't his calling; coaching was.

"Everything was good, but he missed football," Randy Doege said. 

Doege coached his younger brother, Jarrett, who's about 9 years younger than Doege, in 7-on-7 with "and kind of got hooked and felt like that was what he was supposed to do," Randy Doege added.

Jarrett Doege starred at Lubbock-Cooper High School and played at Bowling Green, West Virginia and Troy from 2017-22. The younger Doege played for Brown, the former Texas Tech assistant. 

Seth Doege "had a huge impact on (Jarrett), teaching him how to study and how to read defenses and how to mentally prepare, physically prepare," Randy Doege said. 

"Lord knows I didn't get the genetics they needed, so they had to outwork everybody," he added. 

Doege coached Jarrett at Bowling Green in 2016, before moving on to become an assistant at USC, Ole Miss and Purdue.

In that span, Doege worked with Harrell, who was USC’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, along with Trojans head coach Clay Helton and Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin, who's now at LSU. After spending most of his life in West Texas, Doege experienced other parts of the U.S. 

"For a long time, you couldn't tell me there was a place better than Lubbock, Texas until I left Lubbock, Texas," Doege said. "I went to Atlanta and went, 'Man, this place is pretty cool.'

"I went to another place and went, 'Man, this place is pretty cool. Why would I want to back to West Texas? There's not much to do there. The wind blows and there's dirt in your eye all the time.' ... I really appreciate living in a state and being in an environment where the game I love is really important." 

Doege took his first offensive coordinator job at Marshall in 2024, transforming the Thundering Herd's offense into a Sun Belt Conference championship team — and having a run-first identity despite coming from a pass-centric air-raid background. 

A year later, Doege found himself in Tucson as the savior of an offense that was among the worst in the Big 12. 

In the first season under Doege, the Wildcats had the third-best scoring offense in the Big 12 and averaged 31.5 points per game — a season after averaging 21.8 points per game, which was second-to-last in the conference in 2024. Arizona had the 42nd-best offense in college football last season. 

Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita went from 2,958 yards, 18 touchdowns and 12 interceptions (worst in the Big 12) in 2024, to 3,228 yards, 29 touchdowns and six interceptions — and became the first UA quarterback in 50 years to receive first-team all-conference honors. 

This season, Fifita — who is now Arizona's all-time passing yards leader — is among the top passers in college football with 2,064 yards, 18 touchdowns and four interceptions. Fifita's passing yards are 13th nationally. 

More notably, the Wildcats have a 15-5 record since adding Doege.  

"Coach Doege changed my life," Fifita said. "He changed my life forever and saved my football career. He shaped who I am as a competitor, shaped my mentality in a way that I could never repay him.

"He's the reason I'm in this position today. ... First and foremost, he re-instilled a belief and conviction in me that might've wavered in 2024. When you have 12 interceptions in 12 games, as much as I hate to admit it, you're going to be a little hesitant, and you're naturally going to have a sliver of doubt.

"He re-instilled that (confidence) in myself and showed me how much I could believe in myself. Even more so, the way he attacks his process and the way he attacks everything he does. He talks about mentality; he talks about being a wolf. In every decision, just make it like there's no doubt."

The relationship Doege has with Fifita is similar to the relationship he had with his coaches growing up in West Texas, including his father. 

"They weren't just his coaches, they were his mentors, his second or third fathers and they were also best friends," Randy Doege said. "What he's going through Noah, it's what he went through in his youth." 

Becoming a head coach "is inevitable" for his son, Randy Doege said. 

"It's going to happen," he added. "There's no timeline for that, but he's definitely heading that way. What has impressed me about him, as he moved from school to school, he has always bet on himself. (At Marshall), he bet on himself and won a conference championship.

"Something intrigued him about Arizona and he felt good about it and bet on himself. So far, it has worked out for him."  

Arizona defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales said in July that Doege "is going to be a great head coach."

"His leaderships skills are unbelievable," Gonzales said. "The players love him and he's got them believing that he's got their best interest at heart, which he does. When you do that, they'll do anything for you. Seth will be able to do that with a whole football team and be successful. I can't wait to see and watch his career continue to grow."

'Stay true to our process'

Gonzales has been in a similar position as Doege this week. 

When Gonzales was a defensive assistant at San Diego State, the Aztecs were 3-0 against New Mexico, Gonzales' alma mater and a program he eventually became the head coach of. 

"Playing the place that you grew up loving and played for is one of the most difficult things to do as a coach," Gonzales said. "You want to beat their ass, I promise you that. Deep inside him, you gotta be able to keep that from being emotional, because you do stupid things when you're emotional.

"I think Seth has done a phenomenal job of taking that out of it, especially for our kids. When you beat them, it's like a relief more than it is a joy, because you don't want to lose to them."

Randy Doege said he has "always been a kid that's wherever his feet are, that's what is most important to him."

"I know a lot of people are making a big deal about him coming back to Tech," Randy Doege said. "Without a doubt, he loves Tucson, Arizona, the University of Arizona and he loves Noah Fifita. ... The culture and chemistry between the coaches is phenomenal.

"I give Brent Brennan all the credit for that. The culture between coaches and athletes is also phenomenal. They're hard on them, but you can tell those kids love who they're playing for." 

Living in Lubbock and playing at Texas Tech "was special to me, but I've always been focused on where my feet are at and what I'm doing in that moment," Doege said.

"This week, to me, it's another game to stay true to our process and attack the week the way we've been attacking it and try to go 1-0," said Arizona's offensive coordinator. "It's unique for me, no doubt, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't.

"But I don't want this week to be about me and I made sure those kids know that. ... It's about those guys that have given everything for us and it's about their process and them getting ready to go play a big-time game against a big-time opponent."