Texas Tech football: What we can learn from previous upsets of Longhorns
When we look back at some of the Texas Tech football program’s most recent upsets of Texas, there are some lessons that might apply to this year’s matchup.
The Texas Tech football team returns to the field this weekend (CVOID permitting) for its annual meeting with the Texas Longhorns. And as usual, the Red Raiders enter this game as significant underdogs.
In fact, the ESPN Matchup Predictor gives Matt Wells’ team just an 8.4% chance at pulling off the upset. While there’s usually more possibility of victory given to the Red Raiders, being an underdog to the Longhorns is nothing new for Tech.
The good news is that upsets seem to be the story of the early part of 2020. After all, we’ve already seen some shocking results in the Big 12.
In week one, Iowa State fell to Louisana in Ames while Kansas State was shocked by Arkansas State in Manhattan. And this past weekend, Oklahoma State had all it could handle from Tulsa in an uninspiring 16-7 win.
But what has most people doubting Tech’s chances of taking down the Longhorns is the fact that the Red Raiders themselves were nearly the victims of the season’s biggest upset at the hands of 40-plus point underdog Houston Baptist.
Also casting some doubt on the Red Raiders’ chances this weekend is the program’s recent struggles again UT in Lubbock. After all, the Red Raiders haven’t beaten the Horns at Jones Stadium since 2008.
What’s more, even if one still believed that there was a bit of magic left in The Jones these days, the fact that there will be virtually no home-field advantage on Saturday also seems to lessen the odds of a Tech victory.
Still, we have to hold out some hope for the improbable. Otherwise, why would we even tune in on Saturday afternoon?
Yes, it has been a long time since the days of the Leach era when a trip to the South Plains was the most dreaded weekend on an opponent’s yearly itinerary. But for some reason, every time a ranked team comes to town, we still hold out hope that the ghosts of upsets past will awaken in time to carry the Red Raiders to a win that no one sees coming.
Still, wins against Texas have been rather few in the last two decades with Tech claiming only four since the turn of the century. But each one of those triumphs taught us some important lessons that could translate to this weekend’s game. So let’s find out what we can glean from those four wins as we try to figure out what the recipe for another Red Raider upset might be.