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Looking back at Texas Tech football’s best decades

By Matthew Conner

LUBBOCK, TX -NOVEMBER 22: Wide receiver Wes Welker #27 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders carries the ball during the game against the Oklahoma Sooners at Jones SBC Stadium on November 22, 2003 in Lubbock, Texas. The Sooners won 56-25. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TX -NOVEMBER 22: Wide receiver Wes Welker #27 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders carries the ball during the game against the Oklahoma Sooners at Jones SBC Stadium on November 22, 2003 in Lubbock, Texas. The Sooners won 56-25. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by Thomas B. Shea/Getty Images)
(Photo by Thomas B. Shea/Getty Images) /

The 2000’s

At the turn of the century, we were all laughing at the supposed Y2K computer glitch, wondering if the Mad Cow plague in Europe would spread to the U.S. and preparing for the George Bush vs. Al Gore presidential election.  But what no one expected at the time was that the new head football coach at Texas Tech was about to revolutionize the game as we know it at all levels and usher in the most successful run in program history.

From 2000-09, Mike Leach led the Red Raiders to an 85-43 record (66.4%) the best decade the program has ever seen.  During that time, Tech won no fewer than seven games and qualified for a bowl every year.  In fact, the ten bowl games of the Leach era comprised nearly 1/3 of the program’s 31 all-time bowl appearances through 2010.

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Of course the high point was the 2008 season when the Red Raiders got to No. 2 in the polls after beating No. 1 Texas in Lubbock 39-33 on the famous Graham Harrell to Michael Crabtree last-second touchdown.  Though that season finished with two losses in the last three games to drop the Red Raiders to No. 12, it will forever be the year that most modern Texas Tech football fans look to as best season of their lives thus far.

Tech also had three 9-win seasons (2005, 2007, 2009) and three 8-win seasons (2003, 2004, 2006).  And in the 2000’s, the program finally figured out how to win bowl games on a consistent basis going 6-4.  In the rest of the program’s history, there have been only eight bowl wins.

But perhaps more impressively is how Leach’s “Air Raid” offense changed the course of football history.  The first program from a major conference to utilize the spread offense, Tech was able to overcome talent disadvantages with a passing attack that is now ubiquitous across all levels of the sport.

Few would have ever thought that one of the biggest revolutions in the modern era of football would trace its origins back to Texas Tech but as programs around the nation saw the tremendous success the Red Raiders had with the spread, they soon began to implement some or all of Leach’s concepts into their offense.  As a result, players like Wes Welker and Danny Amendola were able to have tremendously successful NFL careers, which would not have been likely in other decades.

Unfortunately, we all know how the Leach era ended brining to a close the halcyon days of Red Raider football.  Since then, poor coaching decisions have led to constant turmoil atop the program and as the rest of the nation has converted to the spread offense, Tech’s schematic advantage has disappeared leaving the program struggling to find a way to return to relevance on a national scale.

Next. Tech can't afford to lose these players to injury this fall. dark

As we come to the final season of this decade, what we experienced in the 2000’s feels both so recent yet so distant.  It has been ten years since the Red Raiders won nine games in a season.  The only two other decades without a 9-win season would be the 1960’s and the 1920’s.  While it would seem like a stretch to expect Matt Wells to accomplish that in his first year, here’s hoping he can close out this decade in a way that sets us up for a much better run in the 2020’s.

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