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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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General view of a sparse crowd in the stands during the Birmingham Bowl between the South Florida Bulls and Texas Tech Red Raiders (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) *** Local Caption ***
General view of a sparse crowd in the stands during the Birmingham Bowl between the South Florida Bulls and Texas Tech Red Raiders (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** /

Six seasons without a bowl victory

If the Red Raiders want to have a truly successful rebound season in year-two of the Matt Wells experiment, they need to end the program’s streak of six-straight years without a bowl victory.  The last time Tech managed to pick up such a win was in 2013 when Kliff Kingsbury’s team took down No. 14 Arizona State in the Holiday Bowl to end his first year as a head coach.

Since then, the Red Raiders have been to just two bowl games losing to LSU in the 2015 Texas Bowl and Southern Florida in the 2017 Birmingham Bowl.   But do wins in lower-tier bowls matter?

For a program like Texas Tech, the answer is without question “yes”.  Right now, Wells’ program needs any type of positivity it can manage to share with the fans and a bowl win, even if it is in the most obscure of postseason games, would be a nice step in the right direction.

There’s something to be said for heading into the offseason on the heels of a win.  It provides momentum to both the players and the fan base and can help drive ticket sales and enthusiasm for the next year as was the case after Kingsbury’s debut season.

Tech was 6-4 in postseason play in the 2000s with some memorable victories that we still talk about.  Since then, the program has gone just 3-2 and has missed out on a bowl as often as it has qualified for one.

It’s been since 2013 that Tech football generated any buzz in the offseason (at least for a positive reason) and that needs to change if Wells is going to bring back this program’s lost joy.  Thus, putting an end to the longest Texas Tech football drought between bowl victories since another six-year span from 1996-2001 obviously needs to be Tech’s main goal this season.

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