Texas Tech football: Students bail after halftime despite efforts by officials
Though the Texas Tech football program and leaders of the athletic department have begun to tweak the game presentation to appeal to the student body, there was yet another mass exodus at halftime of Saturday’s game continuing a troubling trend.
If you tweak it, they will come. But the problem for the Texas Tech football program is that they won’t stay.
Despite conscious efforts of on the part of the Texas Tech Athletic Department to tweak the football game day presentation to appeal more to the student body, virtually the entire student section at Jones Stadium was vacant during the second half of the Red Raiders’ win over Kansas on Saturday afternoon.
Student attendance and engagement (of the lack thereof) has been a concern for the past handful of seasons prompting athletic department officials to consider both long-term and immediate solutions.
Some of the noticeable changes implemented Saturday included the increase of more hip-hop music played during timeouts and in between plays, the launching of t-shirts (some supposedly containing prizes wrapped inside) into the student section and a student in-game hype man tasked with trying to get the students involved in a Raider Power chant. Also, the North end zone video board displayed a clock counting down the time remaining in media timeouts in an attempt to make the incessant breaks in the action feel less laborious to endure.
But unfortunately, those changes were not enough to convince the students to stick around. By the time play resumed in the third quarter, the student crowd had thinned drastically. Apparently, hip hop music on the PA system is not as much of an enticement as alcohol and Fortnite.
And it is the idea of alcohol sales that many believe will be the key to keeping the students at games. Certainly, the entire fan base favors beer sales at Texas Tech football games and it seems only a matter of time before that becomes a reality. (Though it will require approval by the board of regents meaning that the earliest it would begin is 2019.)
Others students who responded via Twitter to our question about why so many left the game on Saturday pointed to the fact that Kansas is an opponent that generates no interest. But in other recent games such as the September game against Houston that was tied at halftime or competitive games last year against Iowa State and TCU, only a small percentage of students remained in the stadium until those contests were decided.
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Some pointed out that 90-degree temperature during the Houston game was a factor for a large number of students who left. But with afternoon temperatures struggling to reach the low 60’s Saturday (as was the case in last year’s home finale against TCU), it could be argued that Mother Nature has never blessed the Hub City with better weather for an afternoon Texas Tech football game.
Of course, as some pointed out, the play on the field has been less than inspiring during the lifetime of the current student body. It has been ten years since Texas Tech has been relevant on the national stage meaning the current crop of students had not even entered puberty when the environment in Jones Stadium was at its peak.
That decade of mediocrity coupled with the lack of signature home wins and classic Jones Stadium upsets has bred a spirit of cynicism and apathy in the current student body. Should the Red Raiders find a way to beat Iowa State, it will return home for back-to-back marquee home games against Oklahoma and Texas with a legitimate shot at qualifying for the Big 12 title game.
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Those contests should provide a more accurate look at where the students view Texas Tech football as an entertainment option. Beginning with OU and UT, hopefully the football team and the student body can both do their part to return Jones Stadium to the days when it was one of the most frenetic and intimidating venues in all of college football.