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Texas Tech football: Takeaways from the 2021 football schedule

By Matthew Conner

LUBBOCK, TEXAS - OCTOBER 31: Jones AT&T Stadium is pictured before the college football game between the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Oklahoma Sooners on October 31, 2020 in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TEXAS - OCTOBER 31: Jones AT&T Stadium is pictured before the college football game between the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Oklahoma Sooners on October 31, 2020 in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images) /
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LUBBOCK, TEXAS – SEPTEMBER 26: The Texas Tech Red Raiders’ helmet is pictured before the college football game against the Texas Longhorns on September 26, 2020 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TEXAS – SEPTEMBER 26: The Texas Tech Red Raiders’ helmet is pictured before the college football game against the Texas Longhorns on September 26, 2020 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images) /

The 2021 Texas Tech football schedule has been released so let’s take a look at some of the more intriguing aspects of this fall’s slate of games.

Thursday, the Big 12 released its full 2021 schedule giving Texas Tech football fans a complete look at what this fall will offer.  Of course, this schedule is critical in the sense that 2021 is a make-or-break year for head coach Matt Wells and his staff.

But going into an odd-numbered year and coaching for your job is not an ideal situation for any Texas Tech football head coach.  That’s because the odd-numbered years bring extra challenges to the Red Raiders.

First of all, those years require Tech to play five Big 12 road games now that the Baylor series has gone back to being played on campus.  Second, odd-numbered years also send Texas Tech to Austin, Norman, and Morgantown, three of the toughest road environments this conference has to offer.

https://twitter.com/TexasTechFB/status/1359925288487047176?s=20

But we knew prior to Thursday that those circumstances were in store for the upcoming season.  What we didn’t know was the order of the games, which is often key in determining how a season may play out.

So let’s take a look at what we learned by the release of the 2021 schedule.  And as we do, we will try to figure our how the order of the games could impact the job status of Matt Wells.

Two-straight road games to start conference play

Tech doesn’t catch many breaks from the Big 12 schedule makers this year and that’s going to be evident as soon as Big 12 play begins as the Red Raiders open the year with back-to-back road games at Texas and West Virginia.  That means that Tech could be facing an 0-2 record in league play before ever hosting a Big 12 game in 2021.

No one knows what to make of Texas in 2021 with QB Sam Ehlinger headed to the NFL this offseason and new head coach Steve Sarkisian taking over for Tom Herman.  But what we can be certain of is that they will have a distinct talent advantage (at least on paper) over the Red Raiders, as is almost always the case.

We also know that Tech will likely be starting either a true freshman in Behren Morton or a redshirt freshman in Donovan Smith at QB this fall (unless junior Henry Colombi surprises us all in spring practice or the team adds an experienced grad transfer at the position) meaning their first Big 12 start will come in the largest stadium in the Big 12.  While Darryl K. Royal-Memorial Stadium can be a docile environment for a stadium of that size, it is still a tough place for a freshman to get his feet wet when it comes to life as a Big 12 player.

Meanwhile, West Virginia could be a sleeper pick for an appearance in the Big 12 title game.  They will return most of their roster that went 6-4 this past season and they will be in year three of the Neal Brown era, which is going much more swimmingly than the Matt Wells experiment in Lubbock.

The point is that this is a tough task to open the Big 12 portion of the schedule.  It will send a Texas Tech team that is going to be relying on a new starting QB and a new offensive coordinator into two tough road environments to begin league play.

That’s not a great development for Wells.  After all, an 0-2 start to Big 12 play would reawaken the howls and cries for change at head coach from within the fan base and could cast a negative pall on the season before the Red Raiders ever get to host a home game.

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