Texas Tech football: Tech has had success following 4-win seasons

For most of its history, the Texas Tech football program has had success in the year after a 4-win season, which is what 2020 will be.

Unless you are the most sunshine-pumping of optimists, it’s hard to find a ton of positives about a four-win debut season for Texas Tech football head coach Matt Wells.  Going just 2-7 in Big 12 play and producing the program’s fourth-straight losing season was not what anyone had in mind for the 2019 season.

But there is good news for Red Raider fans, especially those that may believe in the notion that history repeats itself.  That’s because, in each of the last three years that Tech has come off of a four-win season, the program has rebounded with a winning campaign.  What’s more, looking back all the way to 1966, in five of the seven seasons following a four-win showing, the Red Raiders have responded with a record above .500.

Prior to 2019, the last four-win season in Lubbock was 2014, the second year of the Kliff Kingsbury tenure.  Coming off an impressive 8-5 debut season, much was expected in 2014 given that Davis Webb was back for his sophomore year after a strong true freshman season and a stellar performance in the 2013 Holiday Bowl victory over No. 15 Arizona State.

But Webb didn’t take that next step in his second year and he also had his season cut to just eight games because of an ankle injury.  Though Patrick Mahomes was waiting in the wings to take over, the true freshman couldn’t save the season and the Red Raiders ended up with wins over only Central Arkansas, UTEP, Kansas, and Iowa State.

Fortunately, in 2015 the Red Raiders rebounded with a 7-6 season that ended in a trip to the Texas Bowl to face LSU and RB Leonard Fournette.  With Mahomes as a sophomore and DeAndre Washington carrying the load at running back, the Red Raiders were able to bounce back in Kingsbury’s third season, his last winning campaign in Lubbock.

Prior to 2014, it had been 23 seasons since Tech had won four games in one year.  In that 1990 season, Tech faced five top-20 teams including Ohio State, Oklahoma, Miami, Houston, Texas, and A&M and lost all five but played the Buckeyes and Aggies down to the wire in one-score contests.

The next year, head coach Spike Dykes led his team to a 6-5 record including a 5-3 mark in Southwest Conference play.  One reason for the rebound was the fact that Tech played only two ranked teams that year, No. 23 A&M and No. 20 Baylor.  It also helped that the Red Raiders were able to take down the Bears 31-24 in Waco.

The Jerry Moore era came to an end (mercifully) in 1985 after his program posted its second-straight four-win season.  In fact, it was the third time in four years that the man most believe to be the most failed head coach in program history won four games.  In the other season in that span, 1983, Tech was just 3-7-1.

But in 1986, David McWilliams turned in an impressive 7-4 regular season in his lone season as head coach before parlaying that into the head coaching job at his alma mater, Texas.  After Dykes lost the Independence Bowl as interim head coach, the Red Raiders had to settle for a 7-5 record but given that it was the program’s first winning season since 1978, no one on the South Plains was complaining.

The point is that there is often hope after disappointing seasons and though many Red Raider fans are pessimistic when it comes to the current state of Texas Tech football, the program’s history suggests that a turnaround season might be right around the corner.  So let’s take a look at some reasons to believe that the 2020 season could be another bounceback.