Looking back at Texas Tech football’s best decades
The 1940’s
At the beginning of the 1940’s, America was still recovering from the effects of the Great Depression and unknowingly on the verge of being thrust into the greatest war the world had ever seen. But even as millions of young American men went off to save the world from the ravages of the Nazi regime, college football continued on during an era when it was arguably the nation’s most popular brand of football.
In that decade, Texas Tech had tremendous success despite being only 15 years into the life of the program. Overall, Tech went 61-42-3 (59.0%) appearing in four bowls and putting up five winning seasons, including four-consecutive to close out the decade.
The head coach for all but one of those seasons in the 40’s was Dell Morgan, whose 55 career wins still rank fourth in program history. To prove what a different era it was, consider that from 1931-34, Morgan was the head basketball coach at Tech while simultaneously serving as an assistant on the football team.
He would then leave Lubbock to become the head baseball…yes…baseball coach at Auburn from 1934-39. As head coach of the Red Raider football team from 1941-50, Morgan went 55-49-3 (52.8%) departing as the second-winningest coach in Tech history.
He continued his coaching career at Rice where he returned to the diamond to coach baseball from 1953-1961. Perhaps, Matt Wells should consider adding Chris Beard and Tim Tadlock to his football staff in some capacity this fall.
The Red Raiders began the decade with back-to-back 9-win seasons. It was one of only two times the program has had at least nine wins in consecutive seasons. The other was in 2008-09.
The second of those seasons culminated with a 6-0 loss to Tulsa in the Sun Bowl on New Years’ Day 1942. Unable to beat the Missouri Valley Conference champions, Tech fell to 0-3 all-time in bowl games.
In fact, Morgan would never win a bowl game with the Red Raiders. Going 0-3 in the 1940’s, he and the Red Raiders ended the decade with two-straight bowl defeats, one in the 1948 Sun Bowl to Miami (OH) and the other in the 1949 Raisin Bowl to San Jose St.
During the 1940’s Tech had 22 players drafted by the NFL. That was quite the jump considering that until from the first ever draft in 1936 to 1939, the program had seen only two of its players selected.
The 40’s proved to be an important decade because the still very new Texas Tech football program was able to take a step forward and become a regular contender for bowl game appearances in a time when only a handful of teams were invited to participate in postseason play each year. In the 40’s, the foundation for future success was laid as Tech grew into a program with a winning culture and started to develop a name for itself nationally, which would ultimately pay off when the Red Riders were admitted to the SWC in 1956.