Texas Tech football: 3 times Red Raiders opened Big 12 play with an upset
Ahead of this weekend’s Big 12 opener against No. 8 Texas, let’s look back at three times the Texas Tech football team has upset a ranked team to open conference play.
Big 12 play arrives this weekend and never before has league play been more critical than it will be in 2020. Of course, that’s because 90% of this year’s schedule will be comprised of league games.
Most Texas Tech fans are well aware of this program’s struggles within the conference over the last decade. But still, the futility is worth keeping in mind because it puts into context just where Texas Tech football is these days.
It has been since 2009 that we’ve seen this program post a winning record in Big 12 action. That year, the final of the Mike Leach era, Tech finished 5-3 to sit 3rd in the Big 12 South.
Since then, Tech has had a losing record in league games every season. What’s more, in only 2012, 2013, and 2015 have the Red Raiders managed even four league victories.
What’s been most surprising is that since 2009, Tech’s play at home has turned wretched. In the last ten years, the Red Raiders have won just 11 Big 12 games at home.
Of course, the worst stretch of Big 12 home futility imaginable came from the final home game of the 2015 season to the first Big 12 home game of the 2019 season when the program went without beating a conference team other than Kansas.
Thus, even before the coronavirus pandemic completely changed the landscape of the sport, one had to wonder if the fact that Tech was set to have an extra Big 12 home game this year was actually going to be a benefit. Now that we know that The Jones will be virtually empty for those five games, there seems to be no reason to believe that playing in Lubbock will hold much of an edge.
Rather, this year is going to come as close as any year ever will to showing us which teams are best in a vacuum where the fans and home-field advantages are nullified. Of course, that’s not all that reassuring for Texas Tech football fans.
Still, there have been some bright spots in Big 12 play sprinkled against the dark sky that has been the last decade. Most notably, Tech has been more effective in Big 12 openers since 2010 than they have in the rest of league action going 5-5 in their last ten seasons.
But to get that record over .500 this year, they are going to have to upset the No. 8 Texas Longhorns. So let’s take a look at three times that the Red Raiders have upset a ranked team in the first game of Big 12 play.