Looking back at Texas Tech football’s best decades

As we prepare for the final Texas Tech season of this decade, let’s take a look at the best decades thus far in program history.

We are just two months away from the 95th season of Texas Tech football. What’s more, the Red Raiders will close out another decade this fall by beginning the Matt Wells era.

The bad news is that the current decade has been one of the worst in Texas Tech history. Currently holding a 56-57 overall record since 2010, the first year of the Tommy Tuberville era, the Red Raiders must go at least 7-6 to avoid just the fourth losing decade since the program’s inception.

Tech’s worst decade thus far was the 1980’s when they went just 48-61-3 (44.2% winning percentage). In the 80’s, the program suffered through seven losing seasons, including six-straight from 1980-1985. For perspective, consider the fact that Tech could go 0-12 this year and still finish the decade with a better winning percentage.

In sports, frequent turnover at the top of any team or organization is almost certain to create a culture of losing.  So its no wonder that in the decade of the 1908’s, when the Red Raiders had four different head coaches (Rex Dockery, Jerry Moore, David McWilliams and Spike Dykes), the program struggled to find its footing.

What’s more, two of those four are among the four coaches with the lowest winning percentages in program history.  Winning just 30.9% of his games from 1981-85, Moore has the second-worst winning percentage of the 15 head coaches in program history.  Meanwhile, Dockery won just 48.5% of his games from 1978-80, 4th-worst among Red Raider coaches all-time.

The second-worst decade in program history was the 1960’s when the Red Raiders went 44-51-4 (46.4%) with four losing seasons.  Much of those struggles were likely because Tech was still in the early years of playing in the Southwest Conference after joining the league in 1960.

After decades of dominating the Border Conference, Tech found life in the Southwest Conference to be a tremendous wakeup call suffering through four-straight losing seasons from 1960-63.  But considering that three of the greatest players in program history, E.J. Holub, Donny Anderson and Dave Parks played in the 60’s, one might have expected to see more success from the Red Raiders in that decade.

The previous decade, the 1950’s, was the only other losing decade thus far endured by the Red Raiders.  Going 49-53-4 (48.1%), in the decade in which they transitioned from the old Border Conference to the Southwest Conference, the Red Raiders had six losing seasons, including four-straight from 1956-59.

However, the first half of the 1950’s were high times for Texas Tech football with three bowl appearances (two wins) and a No. 12 finish in the final 1954 poll.  That season concluded with the famous 35-14 Gator Bowl win over Auburn which was the first televised game in program history and the first time the Masked Rider led the team onto the field.

But to have only three losing decades in the history of the program is nothing to be ashamed of.  Overall, Tech is No. 72 in the nation in terms of all-time wins with 576, which may not seem impressive until you consider that the program did not begin playing until 56 tears after the first college football game.  In fact, Texas Tech was the last of the current Big 12 teams to begin playing football.

Despite that, Tech ranks 20th in the nation in bowl appearances with 38.  Also, the Red Raiders have the 57th best all-time winning percentage at 55.6%.  So obviously, there have been more winning decades in Lubbock than losing ones.

As we look back at the most successful decades in program history, we will exclude the first full decade of the program’s history, the 1930’s.  That 10-season run was actually the most successful in program history in regards to winning percentage as Tech went 67-31-6.

But it is hard to consider a time period when Tech played such schools as McMurry, Wayland Baptist, and New Mexico A&M as the best in program history.  So with that said, here’s a list of the four best decades in program history.