Texas Tech football: Recent plays that were gut-punches to Red Raider fans

TCU last-second TD in 2015

Another gut punch, maybe the ultimate one, for Texas Tech football fans was TCU’s last-second touchdown off a deflected pass in 2015.  It was a play that further cemented Red Raider fans’ belief that the sports gods hate Texas Tech because the only way that the Frogs could have scored on that play was through divine intervention.

With Tech leading the No. 3 team in the nation 52-48 with :23 to play, TCU faced a 4th-and-goal at the Red Raider 4.  QB Trevone Boykin’s pass was batted up into the air coming down in the arms of a diving Aaron Green in the back of the end zone to put the visitors up for good.

Given the oblong shape of a football, such fortuitous bounces are nearly impossible.  Simple physics alone would seem to suggest that the ball would have bounced off in any number of harmless directions 99 times out of 100.  But that night in Lubbock, Tech fell victim to the type of bounce that isn’t supposed to go the way of the road team.

Unlike other games on this list, this loss came early enough in the year that it didn’t necessarily spell doom for the 2016 team.  In fact, Tech would win seven regular season games that year, tied for the most in Kingsbury’s tenure.

But again, Tech failed to win a critical game at home.  Unfortunately, Jones Stadium has lost much of its mystique in recent years as upsets have no longer become the norm on the South Plains.

As a result, teams do not dread coming to Lubbock like they did a decade ago.  And a generation of Red Raider fans have grown up experiencing nothing but heartbreak at the corner of Marsha Sharp and University.

In fact, the last three classes to graduate from Tech have gone their entire collegiate careers having not experienced a top-25 win at Jones Stadium.  Is it any wonder then why student engagement is at an all-time low as the West side of the stadium empties out each week at halftime?

Beating top-5 teams at home are what helps capture new generation of Red Raider fans.  The moment I fell in love with Tech football was in my freshman year, 1999, when Tech upset No. 5 Texas A&M (just one game after inexplicably losing to North Texas at home) and we stormed the field to take down the goal posts.

The current generation of students has not had one of those tear down the goal post, rip up the bleachers, jump in the fountains type of Saturday nights that so many of us have and as such, they lack the type passion for Red Raider football that most of us have.  In 2015, there was an opportunity for one of those types of wins but the flukiest touchdown in Jones Stadium history prevented that from happening.