The Texas Tech football team will begin Big 12 play this week by trying to do something that has been rather challenging during the Joey McGuire era…win on the road. Just 1-5 in games on an opponent’s campus since McGuire took over, the Red Raiders must find a way to fix that problem Saturday in Morgantown, West Virginia.
To be fair, McGuire’s predecessors didn’t do a ton of winning on the road either. Matt Wells was just 3-10 in true road games at Tech while Kliff Kingsbury was only 14-15 in such games.
Of course, winning away from home is tough for most teams. That’s something that even Mike Leach struggled to do at times during his Red Raider career.
In fact, a lack of road success early in his tenure (especially against good teams) left many questioning Leach’s ability to win big at Tech. Going just 6-9 in true road games in his first three seasons at Tech, even the all-time winningest head coach in Red Raider history often found life outside Loop 289 to be difficult.
To win on the road against teams with a pulse requires a program to be healthy in almost every aspect from culture to the roster to the coaching staff and beyond. Trying to storm another school’s castle and come away with a victory is rarely easy, even when playing against programs that are inferior.
We learned that in week one of this season when Wyoming ambushed the Red Raiders in Laramie. Of course, that lesson was also learned in 2019 when Kansas stunned Tech 37-34 in Lawrence overcoming a 17-0 deficit (just as Wyoming did this year against Tech).
Back in 2014, Kingsbury’s team narrowly escaped El Paso with a 30-26 win over UTEP. Don’t forget, though, that was the second close call on the road against the Miners following 2006’s 38-35 overtime nailbiter.
The point is that winning away from home is never something to be taken for granted, even when playing a team that is not very good. Many believe that the Mountaineers are in that category this year but they will present a challenge to McGuire’s team nonetheless.
Tech doesn’t have the type of roster that is simply going to overwhelm another Power 5 team on the road. Sure, anything can happen and the Red Raiders might score a double-digit win on Saturday but that seems unlikely given that the only win McGuire has secured in another team’s home stadium was a 14-10 win over an awful Iowa State team last November.
So why has playing on the road been such a daunting task for Texas Tech over the past two seasons? Let’s take a look at some specific reasons for the struggles away from The Jones.