Texas Tech football: Pathetic win vs. KU a fitting end to 2020

Though the Texas Tech football team managed to eke out a 16-13 victory over winless Kansas on Saturday, the Red Raiders’ performance was pathetic and in being so, it was a perfect end to the 2020 season.

Saturday, the Texas Tech football team ended the 2020 season the way it began, with a win that felt more like a loss. Having to sweat out a 16-13 win over winless Kansas at home, the Red Raiders gave us flashbacks to the season opener in which they were nearly upset by FCS foe Houston Baptist in a 35-33 nail-biter.

On Saturday, facing the worst statistical defense in the nation, Tech managed just 16 points despite the fact that they picked up 410 yards of offense. Meanwhile, KU mustered just 214 yards but they were still able to remain in the game until their final drive when they could not convert on a 4th-down attempt that saw QB Miles Kendrick overthrow a wide-open receiver on a short out route.

What helped head coach Les Miles’ team hang around was four Red Raider turnovers, off of which the Jayhawks got all 13 of their points. Alan Bowman, who was 15-26 passing for 117 yards on the day with no TDs threw an interception in the endzone on Tech’s first possession and that would be followed by fumbles on the part of SaRodorick Thompson, Myles Price, and Xavier White later in the game to help make this contest far closer than it should have been.

Thanks in large part to those giveaways, the Red Raider offense managed to put up just 16 points against a defense that came into the game allowing 49.8 points per game. That’s quite the indication of just how lethargic and sloppy Saturday’s performance was by the home team.

Tech finishes the year just 4-6 overall with two of those wins coming against Baylor and Kansas, which had a combined record of 1-13 when they played the Red Raiders while a third was the two-point escape against the HBU Huskies to open the year.

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What’s more, those three wins over three awful teams came by an average of just two points. In other words, it was another abysmal season for a Texas Tech football program that has not had a winning season since 2015 and which has not had a winning Big 12 record since 2009.

So it was fitting that Tech ended this season with a lifeless and uninspiring showing against the worst football team in the nation, one that had played as many as 30 freshmen at times this fall. Make no mistake, Saturday’s game may go down as a victory in the most technical of senses, but for all intents and purposes, it was far from a triumph.

This football program is in the worst shape that it has been in since the Jerry Moore era of the 1980s when Tech suffered through seven straight losing campaigns and given the uncertainty at quarterback, offensive line, and even head coach, it is hard to have much optimism about where Texas Tech football may be headed as we start to contemplate 2021.

Likewise, it is hard to paint a rosy picture of a 3-point victory over Kansas. Coming into the game, the closest KU had been in any of their previous eight games was a 15-point loss to Coastal Carolina in the season’s first contest.

But they pushed the Red Raiders to the brink on Saturday in a game that was less entertaining than watching a dog take a nap. As a result, the Tech fans base, which was already on the brink of a complete meltdown may now be ready to jump off the sports cliff, especially if significant changes are not made within the program this offseason.

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