Progress in the game of football is rarely linear. That’s why there’s no guarantee that the Texas Tech football program will improve on last season’s 7-6 season.
In fact, the last two times that Tech finished a season with a winning record, the following season would prove to be a disappointment.
In 2013, Kliff Kingsbury’s first season as head coach, the Red Raiders would go 8-5 thanks in part to an impressive win over No. 14 Arizona State in the Holiday Bowl. That led to unmitigated offseason optimism from the fan base as Tech would set a program record for season ticket sales prior to the 2014 season.
However, in Kingsbury’s second season, the team would produce a dreadful 4-8 season. Done in by an awful defense and the regression of sophomore QB Davis Webb, Tech would go just 2-7 in Big 12 play.
However, in 2015, behind Pat Mahomes and running back Deandre Washington, Tech would rebound with a 7-6 season and an appearance in the Texas Bowl. However, that season would see the Red Raiders beat only one FBS team (Arkansas) that would finish the regular season with a winning record and perhaps that should have been a sign that all wasn’t right in Raiderland.
The next season would see the Red Raiders stumble to another losing record going just 5-7 despite getting a historic year from Mahomes. Burdened by the worst defense in the NCAA, Tech would drop five games in which the offense would put up at least 37 points, including two games in which the Red Raiders would score over 50 points.
In other words, this program has struggled to build upon success in recent years. In fact, to find the last time Tech followed up a winning season with a better record the previous year was in 2008 when Tech went 11-2 one year after going 9-4 in 2007.
Of course, momentum is tough to carry across a coaching change. But Texas Tech has had a history of finding success in the first year of a coach’s tenure.
Since the program joined the Southwest Conference in 1960, five first-year head coaches (J.T. King, Jim Carlen, Rex Dockery, David McWilliams, and Mike Leach) have improved upon the program’s win total from the previous season.
Now, the question is whether Joey McGuire can do the same. Of course, it won’t be easy given Tech’s brutal schedule.
Six of this year’s twelve opponents are ranked in the preseason coach’s poll and five are ranked in the A.P. poll. That’s going to make for a daunting slate of games for McGuire in his first go-round in charge of a college program.
Some even believe that it is possible that Tech will have a worse record in 2022 than in 2021 yet be a better team. That would mean that this year’s team would drop a game or two in the nonconference but be far more competitive against the top teams in the conference instead of being blown out as was the case a season ago against Texas, TCU, Oklahoma State, and Oklahoma.
But Red Raider fans don’t want to accept that possibility as a reality. Instead, hopes are high for the Red Raiders to be the breakout squad in the Big 12.
So let’s take a look at why the 2022 team will be better than the 2021 team. And we will begin by looking at the most obvious reason for optimism.