FootballScoop is proud to announce that Kenny Perry (Texas Tech) is the recipient of the 2025 FootballScoop Special Teams Coordinator of the Year, presented by Teamworks and as selected by prior winners of the award.
Texas Tech's run to its first Big 12 Championship and the College Football Playoff was most commonly told of striking oil (pun absolutely intended) in the transfer portal and a defense that stonewalled the run and constantly forced turnovers, led by the efforts of a fabulously mustachioed linebacker. And while all of that is true, it's not the whole story.
Texas Tech's dominant 12-1 season has also been made possible by game-changing special teams.
The Red Raiders enter the Playoff tied for the national lead with five punts or kicks blocked, and also stand as one of 37 FBS teams to return a kickoff for a touchdown. They are one of two FBS teams to block at least five punts or kicks, and return a punt or kickoff for a touchdown.
Overall, Texas Tech is fourth nationally in kickoff returns, averaging a tick shy of 28 yards on their 14 returns to date this season. The Red Raiders are also a top-20 unit in kickoff coverage. Their 107 kickoffs are the most in college football to date, and only 16 have been returned for an average of 16.5 yards.
Texas Tech is the only team to rank among the top five in kickoff returns and the top 20 in kickoff coverage.
Texas Tech is also a top 25 team in total punt return yardage at 240, while allowing only nine punt returns all season for a sum of 61 yards. The Red Raiders have converted 28-of-33 field goal opportunities, a top-35 number nationally. Stone Harrington earned a spot as the kicker on the All-Big 12 First Team, and returner J'Koby Williams was a Third Team All-Big 12 selection.
"What I love about Kenny is he connects with every single player on our team and he gets the best out of them," Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire told FootballScoop.
A 4-year letterwinner at Houston, Perry entered coaching as a graduate assistant at his alma mater in 1992. He landed his first high school head coaching job in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex in 2000 and entered the college game as the director of high school relations at TCU in 2013. Further stops took him to Kansas, the XFL's Dallas Renegades, and SMU. He joined McGuire's staff in 2022 as associate head coach, running backs coach and special teams coordinator.
The FootballScoop Coaches of the Year awards presented by Teamworks are the only set of awards that recognize the most outstanding position coaches in college football. The finalists (Johnathan Galante [Tulane], Justin Lustig [Penn State], LeVar Woods [Iowa] and Perry) were selected based off of nominations by coaches, athletic directors, and athletic department personnel. The prior winners selected this year's winner.
Previous winners of the Special Teams Coordinator of the Year award are James Shibest (Ole Miss, 2008 and Virginia Tech, 2017), Mike Tolleson (Texas, 2009), Joe Robinson (LSU, 2010), John Baxter (USC, 2011), D.J. Durkin (Florida, 2012), Jeff Ulbrich (UCLA, 2013), Robby Discher (Oklahoma State, 2014), Sean Snyder (Kansas State, 2015), Andre Powell (Pittsburgh, 2016), Jeff Banks (Alabama, 2018), Blake Gideon (Houston, 2019), Zac Alley/Winston Venable (Boise State, 2020), Jay Harbaugh (Michigan, 2021), Brian Mason (Notre Dame, 2022), LeVar Woods (Iowa, 2023), and Marty Biagi (Notre Dame, 2024).
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