How Texas Tech fared against Big 12 rivals in 2018-19 academic year
3-3 vs. Baylor
More and more, it feels like Texas Tech and Baylor continue to find themselves near one another in the Big 12 standings regardless of the sport making their games both intriguing and critically important.
In football, Baylor ended the season tied for fourth in the Big 12 while Tech finished tied for 5th. In hoops, Tech won the conference while Baylor ended the year 4th after leading the league standings half-way through the season. And in baseball, the Red Raiders edged out the Bears for the regular season title by winning on the final day of the regular season.
This year, the Red Raiders and Bears split six head-to-head meetings. Though Tech had far more postseason success than Baylor, the regular season meetings between the two schools proved to be rather evenly-matched.
In November, Baylor ended the Kliff Kingsbury era of Texas Tech football with a 34-24 win over the Red Raiders at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. In that game, Tech was forced to start McLane Carter at QB for the first time since the season’s first week.
Cater, who had not thrown more than three passes in a game since the first week of September, went just 21-37 for 247 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. With both Alan Bowman and Jett Duffey sidelined by injury, the Red Raider offense was a lifeless shell of its former self as Kingsbury’s tenure ended with a whimper.
Both teams entered at 5-6 on the season so though this game had little impact nationally or in the Big 12 race, it did matter in the sense that it was a pseudo playoff game for bowl eligibility. Because Baylor won this game and their bowl, they ended the season with serious momentum and are viewed by many as a program on the rise. On the other hand, Tech’s 5-7 season resulted in a coaching change and a third-straight sub .500 season.
On the hardwood, the schools split a pair of games with each winning at home. Baylor took down Tech 73-62 in Waco and Tech retuned the favor 86-61 in Lubbock.
In April, the Red Raider baseball team took two of three games from Baylor in Lubbock. After the Bears came away with an 11-10 win in game-one, Tech took the second game 3-2 before dominating in the rubber match 13-3. This proved to be a critical series for two teams that finished just percentage points apart in the conference standings.
Texas Tech and Baylor are two schools looking to move up to the highest ranks of athletic departments in both Texas and the nation after years of struggling to rise above mediocrity. This year, despite the fact that the schools split their head-to-head meetings, Tech was able to take a much larger step in that direction thanks to achieving the type of postseason success that very few schools in the nation have ever experienced in a single athletic year.