Believe it or not, but spring football is officially here.

Texas Tech kicks off spring practice today, and one coach should have a particularly difficult task for the spring. The Red Raiders hired Chad Glasgow less than a month ago to be their defensive coordinator. Glosgow coached the secondary coach at TCU last season.

Today, he'll kick off the official installation of his new system and schemes. He took some time out this week to talk to ESPN.com.

In part one of this Q&A, he talks about the unusual circumstances that led him to this job, and his early experiences on the job.

David Ubben: Practice starts soon for you, but what goes into the last-minute preparations before it does?

Chad Glasgow: We're making sure everybody is on the same page, structure-wise, that we're all going out, saying the same things and just making sure practice goes smoothly and we're flying around and we know exactly where we're going, so the kids have confidence in where they're going.

How'd you end up in this spot, finally getting a coordinator job?

CG: I think it's a little bit of a longer story, but it's a great deal. Coach Tuberville had Coach [Joe] Walker, the strength coach, call TCU whenever the job first opened and our strength coach at TCU said "Nah, Chad's not leaving. Chad's not gonna want to do that." And I don't know, three weeks later in the deal, [defensive line] coach [Sam] McElroy called me and said, "Hey, we've got this deal here. Are you interested in it?"

I said, "Shoot, yeah!"

He said "Coach Tuberville is out recruiting today, but I know we've talked about you a tremendous amount with the staff and some of those things." Coach Tuberville had just gotten some bad information, but I'm glad it all got remedied. I can promise you that.

What have these first few weeks been like for you?

CG: It's been a race. It's been a sprint. We're trying to teach a lot, and so much of what we do defensively is going to be based on concepts, and we want to do as much as we can to help our kids be successful. And in order to do that, we've got to give our coaches the best chance to be successful, coming in and running a new scheme and all getting on the same page together.

When you say it'll be based on concepts, what do you mean by that?

CG: We're going to teach certain concepts that carry over into different things. We teach techniques and those techniques will carry over. We want to try to eliminate as much extra verbage and as much extra learning as we can, by teaching concepts and by teaching techniques.

For example, we're going to play three basic coverages, and we're going to get lined up versus a pro set versus a twins set. And by being able to play three coverages and lined up to two formations and giving them some checks on how we want to play some other things, now, a young guy can come in and play very quickly and play well.

We try to do the same thing up front with all of it. Every position has got to learn 15-20 words that mean something to them, and if I hear one of those words, that's what I'm going to end up doing. If not, there's still going to be a word in there somewhere that talks to me.

What's been the toughest part about the new gig so far?

CG: It's all been a lot of fun right now, there hasn't really been any tough parts. The kids have been great, everything's been fun, and now we've got to go out and actually get our hands dirty and play and start working with it. We've got to get better as a defense.

So what have you enjoyed most about finally being a coordinator?

CG: Just being around the kids and being around the coaches and those things. There's a bunch of good people here, you know? It's fun to get up and go to work with those guys every day. The kids are eager and they bust their tail in the weight room and it's just a lot excitement about everything.

In the lengthier part two later today, Glasgow talks about what he's seen out of the defensive struggles last year, and what to expect from him and his new defense in 2011.