WVU Football Series History: The Texas Tech Red Raiders
West Virginia and Texas Tech will enter this weekend with identical 3-5 records, meaning Saturday’s game is all but an elimination game for bowl eligibility.
This Saturday's contest certainly will not be the first high-stakes game between the Mountaineers and Red Raiders as West Virginia and Texas Tech’s tilts have been defined by Big 12 play and have often had a serious impact on the conference results.
The very first meeting between the Mountaineers and Red Raiders was played all the way back on New Years’ Day in 1938. Texas Tech won the Border Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, while coach Marshall Glenn’s West Virginia team finished 8-1-1 as an independent. West Virginia dominated the game on the ground as Harry Clarke put up 132 yards, but the complete lack of a passing game stalled the offense. The Red Raiders also struggled to move the ball, with halfback Elmer Tarbox finishing as the only player to average over four yards per carry. All of the scoring took place in the second quarter, beginning after the Mountaineers recovered a muffed punt at the Texas Tech three-yard line. It took four plays, but David Isaac finally took a pitch, dodged three Red Raiders, and found the end zone. Later in the second, Texas Tech’s Charlie Calhoun scored from two yards away, but the extra point was missed.
The score held through the end of the game, and the Mountaineers won the first meeting with the Red Raiders, 7-6.
West Virginia didn't see Texas Tech again until it joined the Big 12. As fate would have it, current Mountaineer head coach Neal Brown had a profound effect on the first conference meeting. West Virginia entered as the No. 5 team in the nation, with a perfect 5-0 record. Serving as the offensive coordinator for the Red Raiders, Brown engineered an attack that saw senior quarterback Seth Doege, older brother of current Mountaineer Jarret Doege, throw for 499 yards and six touchdowns. West Virginia never got going and trailed 35-7 at halftime. Geno Smith struggled to string drives together, and Texas Tech derailed West Virginia’s national title hopes with a 49-14 win.
The 2013 game in Morgantown went a little bit better for the Mountaineers, but the result remained the same. West Virginia led going into the fourth quarter, and transfers Clint Trickett and Dreamius Smith put together impressive performances but it was all for naught. Davis Webb threw for 462 yards and two touchdowns and led the Red Raiders to 14 unanswered points in the fourth quarter of the game. West Virginia was held scoreless down the stretch and could not respond to Tech's aerial attack. A potential win slipped away and the Red Raiders took it, 37-27.
West Virginia went into Lubbock in 2014 and picked up its first win in the series. The story of this game was the dominant running performance put on by the Mountaineers’ stable of backs. Wendell Smallwood posted 123 yards on 15 carries, while Rushel Shell added 110 yards of his own to go with a pair of touchdowns. Trickett cracked 300 yards on the day and helped balance the offense out immensely. The Red Raiders were outscored 27-13 in the second half, and the Mountaineers put together a comeback of its own to win 37-34.
In 2015, West Virginia shut down the Texas Tech air raid with a powerful ground game for the second straight year. Once again, Smallwood and Shell broke 100 yards, combining for 274 yards and three touchdowns. Another close game came down the wire with Patrick Mahomes throwing a touchdown to Deandre Washington just under the seven-minute mark, closing the score gap to 31-26. However, The Red Raiders never got the ball back as West Virginia bled the clock with a 16-play drive that went inside the Texas Tech five-yard line. With no need to punch the ball in the end zone, the Mountaineers ran all the time off the clock and earned its first-ever home win over Tech.
Another win in 2016 was the first dominant performance that West Virginia ever put together against Tech. For the third straight year, the rushing attack powered the offense, with 104 yards and two scores from Shell, 99 yards from Kennedy McKoy, and 89 yards and two more touchdowns from Skyler Howard. Howard also outpaced Mahomes through the air as the result was never in doubt of the Mountaineers. Leading 24-7 at halftime, West Virginia scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter to make things uglier in a 48-17 blowout in Lubbock.
Back in Morgantown, the 2017 game was once again a major comeback performance for the Mountaineers. Trailing 35-17 with 11:16 left in the third, West Virginia got the ball back and Will Grier took over. In just over four minutes, he took the offense down the field and hit David Sills for a touchdown. Two drives later, Grier needed just 1:32 to get into the end zone, finding Ka’Raun White from 32 yards out. A three-and-out forced by the Mountaineer defense gave the offense a chance to take the lead and it did just that with Grier and White hooking up once again. The defense stood tall again, forcing another three-and-out and an interception sandwiched around Grier’s third touchdown of the quarter. He finished with 352 yards and five touchdowns, three to Sills, while White tallied 114 yards and two scores of his own. West Virginia won its fourth straight over Texas Tech, 46-35.
Last year in Lubbock, the Mountaineers nearly let a sure thing slip away. Freshman quarterback Alan Bowman was forced to leave the game after a vicious sandwich hit from Ezekial Rose and Keith Washington partially collapsed his lung. (We're glad he's okay.) West Virginia led 35-10 at halftime, but backup quarterback Jett Duffey made things interesting in the second half. With the Mountaineer defense unprepared for Duffey’s running ability, he brought the Red Raiders all the way back but threw a costly interception that Washington returned for a touchdown. Texas Tech scored again with less than a minute left, but it was too little, too late. West Virginia got its fifth consecutive win over the Red Raiders, 42-34.