In 2013, Texas Tech was trying to boost attendance at football games. It didn't hurt that the coach they just hired was already a superstar in Lubbock, a fan favorite from his quarterback days a decade before. One of the ideas was to take Kingsbury to a sorority, accompanied by one of his assistant coaches, David Raih, and have him interact with students.

"He had to walk in and say hi, and everyone was screaming," said Raih, who has returned to work with Kingsbury and coach the Cardinals' wide receivers. "It was like (Justin) Bieber Fever."

The memory brings a smile to Kingsbury's face. "It's not my favorite thing," he acknowledged. "That was actually one of the better ones. It was part of the job."

It was hard to get away from seeing Kingsbury in such a light. He wore sunglasses during games, his life measured by Ryan Gosling memes. He may have built a football resumé working with high-profile college quarterbacks he worked with, like Johnny Manziel, Baker Mayfield, Patrick Mahomes and Webb, but his fame grew on the back of his good looks and youth, and the natural swagger he brought with it.

That wasn't a bad thing when Kingsbury was recruiting high school players, or relating to the 19- and 20-year-olds at Tech.

"He loves (the musical artist) Drake, he's always in the know, he's always the best-dressed guy everywhere, he wears the best suits, he's played in the NFL," Webb said. "There are so many things players look at.

"It's one of the strengths he had, as a person and a coach."

Kingsbury's older brother Klint smiles when talking about his sibling's public perception, saying it would be "hysterical" to project the mid-1990s Kliff as such a stud ("I won't go any further than that.") But Kingsbury was smart enough to use whatever people might think of him, whether it was on the recruiting trail or trying to drum up more support at Texas Tech.

"Kliff is a very smart guy," said B.J. Symons, Kingbury's backup when Kingsbury played at Texas Tech. "He's done a good job to kind of facilitate that image and kind of build his brand. I don't think it was done by chance, but I'm not saying it's not genuine. Early at Tech, he was kind of the small-town kid who over time, kind of grew into it with experiences he had."

The spotlight was intense at Texas Tech. Perhaps it was natural that the aura of Kingsbury was going to grow. After his huge success in college playing QB for Mike Leach and the Red Raiders, Kingsbury went to the Patriots. His NFL dream didn't work out – he also had stints with the Jets, Saints, Bills and, briefly, the Broncos – but the shine was still there by the time Kingsbury got back to Lubbock.

"I've always been very secure in who I am," Kingsbury said. "Whatever people see they see. As long as the people who are important to me know who I am and what I am about, that's all I've ever cared about."

Kingsbury was brought to Texas Tech because he had already worked with some high-profile college quarterbacks. But it would have been naïve to think his stature as a local hero didn't matter. Sonny Cumbie, another of Kingsbury's backups at Texas Tech and later an assistant coach on Kingsbury's Tech staff, said Kingsbury would've rather had the focus on the team and the players than himself. Reality made that difficult.

Now in the NFL, reality is different. The attention is on Larry Fitzgerald, Patrick Peterson, David Johnson and Chandler Jones. The attention is on who will play quarterback. If Kingsbury wants the focus on the team, the Cardinals will have it – although Kingsbury won't escape the spotlight.

Kingsbury will shrug it off, though. He'll show up before dawn, in part to get in a workout before his day. When you're both the head coach and leading the offense, there's just more to do. It only makes sense to get some of it accomplished before the rest of the building shows up and "maybe before your attention is pointed in different directions," he said.