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Texas Tech football: Unpleasant streaks that need to end in 2020

By Matthew Conner

LUBBOCK, TEXAS - OCTOBER 19: Jones AT&T Stadium is pictured before the college football game between the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Iowa State Cyclones on October 19, 2019 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TEXAS - OCTOBER 19: Jones AT&T Stadium is pictured before the college football game between the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Iowa State Cyclones on October 19, 2019 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images) /
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Running back Trey Sermon #4 of the Oklahoma Sooners leaps for a touchdown against the Texas Tech Red Raiders  (Deering/Getty Images)
Running back Trey Sermon #4 of the Oklahoma Sooners leaps for a touchdown against the Texas Tech Red Raiders  (Deering/Getty Images) /

8-game losing streak to OU

There’s no shame in losing to Oklahoma.  After all, they are the premier program in the Big 12.  But to gain some serious national respect and show that the program is headed in the right direction, Texas Tech needs to rack up the occasional victory over the bluest of blue-blood programs it plays each year.

The problem is that Tech has not beat the Sooners since 2011.  If you want to relive that game, check out our article on that classic upset in Norman, which we ran earlier this week.

Since that night when Seth Doege and the Red Raiders beat the No. 3 team in the nation on the road, OU has had little trouble with the Red Raiders.  Only three of the last eight games in the series have been decided by fewer than 10 points and the average margin has been 19 points in favor of the Sooners.

This year, OU comes to Lubbock, where they have not lost since 2009.  But could this be an opportunity for the Red Raiders to end their regular season with a signature victory?

No one expects the Sooners to fall off the map this season by any means.  But they will enter the year with serious questions at QB for the first time in the Lincoln Riley era with the head coach being forced to choose between Spencer Rattler and Tanner Mordecai, neither of which has any career starts to his name.  Whomever he picks, the other will likely look to transfer meaning that if he makes the wrong choice, his program could finally struggle at a position where it has produced three-straight Heisman Trophy finalists.

But even if OU has another strong offense, as expected, Tech proved two years ago that playing in Lubbock is not just a walk in the park for the Sooners.  Despite losing Alan Bowman at halftime of the 2018 game, the Red Raiders pushed OU to the brink in a 51-46 shootout.

Matt Wells is a coach who needs to gain some national credibility by starting to take down name-brand programs rather than just playing them close as he did at Utah State.  If he can score a victory over OU this season, it will give the Red Raiders the type of publicity that a struggling program needs when it is in the early stages of a rebuilding project.

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