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Texas Tech football: Three obstacles Matt Wells must overcome in 2019

By Matthew Conner

LUBBOCK, TX - SEPTEMBER 08: Demarcus Felton #2 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders reacts to scoring a touchdown during the first half of the game against the Lamar Cardinals on September 08, 2018 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TX - SEPTEMBER 08: Demarcus Felton #2 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders reacts to scoring a touchdown during the first half of the game against the Lamar Cardinals on September 08, 2018 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by John Weast/Getty Images)
(Photo by John Weast/Getty Images) /

Texas Tech is now a basketball school

It seems hard to fathom but the flagship university of West Texas has now become a basketball school.   Despite West Texans’ love affair with football, Texas Tech football has now become second-fiddle to the basketball program.

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While Chris Beard was building a premier hoops program over the past three years, the decline of Red Raider football caused fan apathy to rise to its highest levels since the final years of the Spike Dykes era in the late 1990’s.  And last season, fan support at Jones Stadium bottomed out to the point that even home games against Oklahoma and Texas (both of which were one-possession games) finished in front of a stadium that was 65-70% empty despite the fact that both games were night contests.

Tech has not beaten a Big 12 team other than Kansas in Lubbock since taking down Kansas State in 2015.  As a result, fans have become jaded and numb to the program that just a decade ago had the entire state of Texas buzzing.

And now, Wells must find a way to win back a fan base that has had a taste of success at the highest levels thanks to Chris Beard’s hoops team.  Trying to impress a group of fans coming off the exhilaration of a national title game appearance will not be easy.  Even if Wells gets Tech to a bowl game, the common fan is likely to react with a shrug of the shoulder and a yawn as they say “When does basketball season start?”

If there is one factor working in Wells’ favor, it is that Texans will always view football games as can’t-miss social events.  Tailgating and sharing Saturday afternoons with friends will always make Texas Tech football attractive to the general populace.

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After all, football is in our DNA.  It is what we do and who we are.  But when football is a social event, fans (especially the less hardcore variety) do not fully invest resulting in a docile home atmosphere where the empty seats outnumber the fans 4:1 in the second half.  Wells must do more than simply produce a mediocre team to ignite some passion within a fanbase that has been to the top of the mountain in basketball (and baseball) and will not be content to emotionally invest in a middling football program.

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