Texas Tech football: Where Red Raiders have surprised as a team thus far
As we sit through the Texas Tech football team’s bye week, let’s look back at the first three games of the season to see where the Red Raiders have surprised thus far.
The curse of the college football season is that for something that seems to take so long to come back around each year, it flies by almost before we can wrap our heads around the fact that our favorite sport has returned to our life. Though it still feels like the Texas Tech football season is brand new, we are already a quarter of the way through the 2019 schedule.
After three games, Tech sits at 2-1, the second-straight year that the Red Raiders have had that record following non-conference play. In each of the last two seasons, its been Tech’s annual out of conference game that has prevented a 3-0 start.
Last season was hardly two possessions old before Tech tripped over its own feet in a 47-27 loss to Ole Miss in Houston. But Tech was able to rebound with wins over Lamar and Houston to build momentum before Big 12 play.
The change to the way Big 12 teams are encouraged by the conference to build their schedule so that each team annually plays a Power 5 non-conference opponent has certainly given Tech trouble. Prior to this year, the Red Raiders had alternated losses and wins in those games since 2014 with losses to Arkansas, Arizona State, and Ole Miss in 2014, 2016, and 2018 respectively and a victory at Arkansas in 2015 and at home against Arizona State in 2017.
In all other non-conference regular-season games this decade, Tech is a perfect 23-0. The last time the Red Raiders dropped a game to a team from a team outside of the Power 5 conferences was in 2009 when Houston eeked out a 29-28 home win over Tech.
However, the fact that the Red Raiders enter Big 12 play coming off a disappointing and uninspiring performance at Arizona has cast quite a bit of a pall over the fan base. Of course, that was only worsened by the left shoulder injury to Alan Bowman who will miss several weeks.
When Tech travels to Norman, Oklahoma next week, it will be the first time since 2014 that the Red Raiders will enter conference play after a loss. And given how unlikely an upset of the No. 5 team in the nation seems, a losing streak will likely be in progress before another game takes place at Jones Stadium.
Yet, this season has not been all doom and gloom. Though the taste we have in our mouths after last week was bitter, we have to admit that there have been some pleasant surprises this year. Let’s take a look at some areas where the team has performed surprisingly well to begin the Matt Wells era.