Texas Tech football: TCU AD admits fear of Tech fans taking over Fort Worth

It is no secret that Texas Tech fans have developed quite a reputation for taking over opposing teams’ stadiums and arenas in recent years.  Now, one BIG 12 AD is admitting that his school is taking steps to try to keep the red out of his school’s venues.

Recently, Texas Tech fans discovered that TCU would not be selling single-game tickets for the Red Raiders’ visit to Fort Worth this fall.  Rather, the only way that you can buy a ticket to that game is to buy one through the Texas Tech ticket allotment or to purchase a season ticket package through TCU.

In response, the official Texas Tech Athletics Twitter account Tweeted out that single-game tickets for all seven home games (the word “all” was emphasized by being in all capital letters and by being italicized).  What’s more, the Tweet was capped off with a winking emoji, another nod to the TCU tactic.

As Texas Tech fans are known to do, they took to Twitter to give TCU Athletic Director Jeremiah Donati know a hard time about his football program’s blatant attempt to keep Tech fans out of Amon G. Carter Stadium.  But Donati didn’t shy away.  In fact, he doubled down by Tweeting that the same tactic could be expected of basketball season.

https://twitter.com/JDonati_TCU/status/1548105277345370115?s=20&t=RyBu_D68OGewY0BS-LuE5g

Of course, Red Raider fans have gained quite a bit of notoriety for invading opposing venues, especially basketball arenas, in the past five years.  Most notably has been the way in the last handful of seasons that Red Raider fans have taken over the Frank Erwin Center, the now former home of the Texas Longhorns basketball program.

That prompted Texas to try to take their own measures to keep Red Raiders out of their home venue.  This past season, a special code was required to buy tickets to the Tech-Texas basketball game in Austin, a code that was only distributed to Longhorn fans.

Of course, that didn’t stop Red Raider fans from invading the Erwin Center.  Tech fans found out what the code was, shared it on internet message boards and social media, and the takeover of UT’s arena was on.

But this is the first time that an opposing AD has openly admitted that his school is trying to keep Texas Tech fans from outnumbering the home fans.  Now, given TCU’s football attendance struggles, it’s not hard to understand why Donati and his athletic department would be concerned.  All it takes to find evidence of thousands upon thousands of empty seats at Amon G. Carter Stadium is one simple Google search.

Thus, is it any wonder that the Big 12 school situated in the heart of Texas Tech’s second-largest alumni base is paranoid about a scarlet and black takeover?  Still, for an active athletic director to openly admit that his school is trying to take preventative measures to keep one particular rival’s fanbase from overtaking his home arena is unusual.  What’s more, it should be embarrassing to the TCU fan base as a whole.

Sure, Texas basically tried the same thing by taking the steps they took last basketball season.  But that was done covertly and not confirmed to the world on social media.  So for Donati to Tweet what he did is a hilarious development and a new reason for Tech fans to chastise the people in purple.

The reality is that TCU sits squarely in the middle of one of the largest metro areas in America and yet, regardless of how good its teams may be performing, that university struggles to capture the hearts of its home community and fill arenas that are some of the smallest in the Big 12.  Now, the man in charge in Fort Worth is admitting that they fear a Red Raider invasion when Tech comes to town in two different sports.

That’s a testament to the passion of the Texas Tech fan base and a sign that the Red Raiders have earned a reputation for being perhaps the greatest traveling fan base in the conference and one of the best in the nation.  That’s something that Jeremiah Donati wishes he could say about his fan base.  But of course, he’s too busy worrying about whether or not they will fill their own home arenas.