Texas Tech football: Red Raiders that need to step up against Wyoming

Can Gino Garcia prove to be the next excellent Texas Tech kicker?

While I don’t expect this game to come down to a last-second field goal try for new Texas Tech kicker, Gino Garcia, it will be important that he gets off to a good start as the team’s placekicker.  What’s more, he has some big shoes to fill after two stellar years of kicking from his predecessors.

Last season, Trey Wolff was 21 of 25 on field goal tries and 41 of 42 on extra-point attempts.  Meanwhile, in 2021, Jonathan Garribay was 15 of 16 on field goals and 49 of 50 on extra points.

So in the past two years, Tech’s two primary kickers have made 87.8% of their field goal opportunities.  Can Garcia carry on that tradition of excellence in 2023?  Well, so far, he’s 0-1 in his Red Raider career after missing his only FG try last fall.

Kicking in Laramie, Wyoming should be a dream, especially early in the season before the cold weather sets in.  At 7,165 feet, no city in the FBS is higher in elevation.  Therefore, one has to wonder if McGuire will push the limits of what he feels Garcia’s leg can handle.

While many football fans don’t want to consider kickers important, the last two years should have taught Texas Tech football fans otherwise.  Were it not for Garibay’s 62-yard last-second bomb against Iowa State in Lubbock two seasons ago, Tech may not have reached a bowl game.

What’s more, last season, Wolff had to hit a last-second field goal against Houston to send that game to OT (where Tech would win) and his OT field goals against Texas and Oklahoma gave the Red Raiders their two signature triumphs of 2022.

At some point this year, Garcia is going to be asked to be clutch as well.  While we hope that won’t be the case in week one, it will be worth watching to see if Tech’s new kicker can be as reassuring as the last two players to hold that job.