Texas Tech football: Loss to KU brings concerns about program’s future
The Texas Tech football team’s loss to Kansas on Saturday has rocked the fan base and is causing many Red Raiders to worry about the future of the program.
To say that the Texas Tech football fan base is reeling following Saturday’s 37-34 loss to Kansas would be an understatement. It was just the program’s second-ever loss to the Jayhawks in 21 overall meetings and the first since 2001 but it sent the wrong message to a fandom that was already uncertain about whether or not it is safe to emotionally invest in this program once again.
It’s not just that Tech lost to KU that is concerning. Had this been an unexpected blip on the radar in what was an otherwise promising season, it would have still been mortifying but it would have been easier to chalk up as an anomaly.
Rather, this was a continuation of the program’s long descent to the bottom of the Big 12 and the college football landscape. Having lost to KU, it’s impossible to argue that Tech isn’t currently the worst team in the conference, a tough pill to swallow for Tech fans, especially given how accustomed we’ve come to seeing our teams reach the grandest of stages in other sports.
Of course, the fate of this year’s football team could change, but right now Tech is one of only three teams in the league with one Big 12 win. KU and West Virginia are the other two and given that the Mountaineers’ win came over the Jayhawks, it is logical to slot them ahead of the Red Raiders for at least the next two weeks until the two teams meet in Morgantown.
So naturally, there’s little hope among the fan base of seeing this team reach a bowl in 2019. That’s because none of the four games remaining seem likely to go Tech’s way. Facing West Virginia, TCU, Kansas State, and Texas, the Red Raiders will have to go 3-1 in the final month of the season to get to six wins. To put it another way, Tech will have to equal in November alone the number of Big 12 wins this program has managed to capture in each of the last three seasons.
Heading to West Virginia, Tech will have to break a four-game losing streak to the Mountaineers. The Red Raiders have not won in Morgantown since 2013.
When TCU comes to Lubbock the following week, the Red Raiders will be trying to stop a two-game home losing streak to the Horned Frogs. That task now looks much more difficult after the Frogs seemed to find a new offensive identity in their 37-27 win over Texas on Saturday.
A week later, Kansas State comes to Lubbock looking to extend its three-game winning streak in the series. Given that the Wildcats just took down No. 5 OU this past weekend, there’s no question that Tech fans are now pessimistic about our team’s chances of beating the Wildcats.
To end the year, Matt Wells will take his team to Austin on Thanksgiving weekend. Though the Red Raiders have won their last two games at Royal-Memorial Stadium, it seems inconceivable that Tech would be able to slow down the Longhorn offense and its stable of fantastic receivers any better than it did Kansas’.
Right now, beating just one of the teams on the remaining schedule feels like a long shot. Beating three of them feels impossible.
But we will worry about those individual games as they come. What is more concerning right now is the overall direction of the program.
While we can’t fully judge Matt Wells after just one year on the job, regardless of whether or not that year is as abysmal as it appears it is destined to be, we are justified in looking at the entire state of the program and wondering if there is any hope for a revival in the foreseeable future. The loss to Kansas has not only been humiliating and humbling, but it has also awoken some deep-seated fears and concerns among die-hard fans. Let’s take a look at some legitimate concerns that Texas Tech football fans had on their minds when Sunday dawned given what occurred the night before.