Texas Tech football: 10 predictions for the Red Raiders in 2022

Tech will pick up momentum as the season progresses

Many Texas Tech football fans have simply come to accept that this program is going to wilt as the season progresses.  But this year, thanks to the roster’s depth and the way the schedule is laid out, Tech will finish the season on an up-tick.

Tech has a brutal first six games with three coming on the road and four being against ranked opponents.  But in the last six games, Tech has to go on the road only twice and will face only two ranked teams, Baylor and Oklahoma.

During the back half of the schedule, Tech will also get to play Kansas (the Big 12’s version of a live bye week) and West Virginia (a team that it is reasonable to believe will struggle again under Neal Brown).  Of course, the road trips to TCU and Iowa State won’t be easy but both are merely going to be average teams and both could be winnable games.

If Tech finds a way to end the season with a winning record, that will be a welcome turn of events.  After all, this program has become known for fading down the stretch.

Last year, Tech went just 2-4 in the final six regular-season games.  The year prior, Tech was just 2-3 in the final five games of the abbreviated ten-game schedule.

In 2019, the Red Raiders dropped six of their final seven contests.  And in 2018, the program went 1-5 in the back half of the season losing its final five games.

To find a year in which Tech didn’t have a losing record over the final six games, you have to go back to 2015 when the Red Raiders went 3-3.  And to find a season in which the program had a winning mark in the final six regular-season games, you have to go all the way back to 2010 (and one of those wins came over Weber State).

However, this year’s team is the deepest that Tech has fielded in quite some time.  And the schedule lightens up a bit as the calendar flips to November.  So this season, Tech will go 4-2 in its final six games to finish the year with some serious momentum.