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Texas Tech football: Red Raiders have dominated series with Kansas

By Matthew Conner

LUBBOCK, TX - OCTOBER 18: DeAndre Washington #21 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders carries the ball against the Kansas Jayhawks on October 18, 2014 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. Texas Tech won the game 34-21.(Photo by John Weast/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TX - OCTOBER 18: DeAndre Washington #21 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders carries the ball against the Kansas Jayhawks on October 18, 2014 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. Texas Tech won the game 34-21.(Photo by John Weast/Getty Images) /
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The Texas Tech football team looks to continue its domination of Kansas this weekend in a series that has seen the Red Raiders lose only once.

This Saturday, the Texas Tech football team hosts Kansas in the next chapter in a series that has been about as dominant as one can imagine.  Overall, Tech holds an 18-1 edge over the Jayhawks since the teams first met back in 1965.

The Red Raiders one loss to KU is the program’s fewest number of defeats to any Big 12 school.  The next fewest is the team’s five losses to Iowa State.

What makes the KU football program so odd is that it is one of the worst in the nation despite being one of the oldest programs in the game.  Typically, the longer a team has been playing college football, the more historically significant and successful its program will be.

Kansas began playing in 1890, three years before Texas, five years before Oklahoma and the same year as Nebraska.  But while, their contemporaries built legendary programs, Kansas football has been a an afterthought not only on a national scale but even on its own campus.

With a program record of 582-637-58, the Jayhawks rank No. 103 in the country in terms of overall program winning percentage at just .487.  Despite starting their football program over three decades later, Texas Tech trails KU by just 16 total wins.

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Tech jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the series winning six of those games by at least 10 points.  The exception came in 2000 when first year head coach Mike Leach and redshirt sophomore QB Kliff Kingsbury won a 45-39 shootout in Lawrence.

The following year, Kansas managed its only win thus far in the series by knocking off the Red Raiders 34-31 in double-overtime in Lubbock.  KU scored a touchdown and added a two-point conversion late in the 4th quarter to tie the game and sealed the win by picking off a B.J. Symons pass. (Symons had replaced Kingsbury after he left the game with a sprained thumb).

Since then, Tech has had its way with Kansas winning eleven-consecutive games.  However, there have been some close calls.

In 2004, the Red Raiders trailed 30-5 in the first half in Lawrence.  But a 70-yard Taurean Henderson TD run in the 4th quarter capped a 26-point comeback to stun the Jayhawks.

The 2011 game in Lawrence saw KU again jump out to a big early lead, this time 20-7 before Texas Tech QB Seth Doege led his team to a 45-34 win.  Tech also won close games in 2014 (34-21) and 2015 (30-20) which were in doubt until the final quarter.

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And therein may lie the most important lesson in this seasons series.  While KU football has been hapless for most of its history, the Jayhawks can’t be overlooked.  Texas Tech must not play the logo on the opposition’s helmet this Saturday but play its best brand of football if it hopes to avoid giving the Jayhawks their second victory in the series.

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