Texas Tech University Athletics
A Thousand Games Of Scarlet & Black Football
September 05, 2015 | Football
By: Britton Drown
Special to texastech.com
It's a bit of a ritual. Nearly every morning inside the south offices of Jones AT&T Stadium, Rodney Allison makes a detour. His first destination is not that of his office, but instead, the Executive Director of Texas Tech's Double-T Varsity Club ensures that he is the very first, and only, visitor to the building's small conference room.
It's from here each morning, for a mere 30-45 seconds, that Allison gazes out beyond the windows and over the plush green field below. He cherishes this view.
It's home. A view of below, where Allison bore the scarlet and black as a quarterback from 1974-77, and then as an assistant coach and now as an administrator.
This view, this ritual, is deeply important to the lifelong Red Raider.
"I don't know what would have happened if I went to another school," he says. "This was a place for me."
Today, we too will take a look around this stadium. Much has changed here in 90 years. The terrain, the buildings and the people surrounding this grand place, they have all in a way weathered and evolved before our very eyes. Through time, history has sparkled itself against the walls and within the culture of Texas Tech University in a way that is unique to a college town.
Yet in the midst of it all, there has been one very prominent constant to hold it all together in place.In those nine decades, autumns on the South Plains, have been stamped in the colors of scarlet and black as the Red Raider football team grasps the hearts and energy of us all. And today, that football team, under the guidance of its 15th head coach in program history, beloved alumni and former quarterback Kliff Kingsbury, will play in its 1,000th game.
"It means everything to me," Allison says. "It gave me everything I have. It was the foundation for what I was to become."
Yes, we love this game, its pageantry and its spectacle - all played out by students of the very institution we ourselves invest so deeply in.
On Saturday, Texas Tech is set to open the 2015 season in a highly-anticipated game against Sam Houston State. The scene will unfold, as it has each autumn since 1925, inside the walls of Jones AT&T Stadium. Here, Tech has played 505 of those games, winning 333 for an impressive .677 winning percentage. Overall, in games both in Lubbock and afar, the Red Raiders have amassed a record of 544 wins, 423 defeats and 32 ties.
Through 90 football seasons here on campus, the Red Raiders have together composed a story that has intimately woven through the fabric of nearly every facet of the university's history. In fact, the football team was formed just two years after the founding of Texas Tech in 1923.
"It means a lot," Texas Tech Director of Athletics Kirby Hocutt said. "There are not many things in our country or anything within higher education that has the opportunity to bring together such a vast array of individuals and bring them back to campus to connect the community in the way that college football does. The lifelong connection that alumni have with Texas Tech University is indeed special."
Tech's first season kicked off against McMurry in 1925, a game that ended in a 0-0 tie in front of a recorded crowd of 4,500. The Red Raiders went on to win their first game in school history against Montezuma on Oct. 17, 1925, in a 30-0 shutout – a game that spurred Tech to a 6-1-2 finish that inaugural season.
Red Raider football would go on to grow into one of the most respected and competitive teams in the country, building a one-of-kind fan base in the process. Tech has appeared in 36 bowl games and captured 11 conference championships and through it all, the football team has in many ways, served as the heart of Lubbock.
"The first thing that jumps out at you is the community," said Kingsbury, one of Tech's all-time great quarterbacks who returned to Raiderland in December 2012 as head coach. "The support has just been fantastic…the fan base has grown and grown and there has always been the passion and the love. It's all just become bigger and better over the years."
For Allison, the passion for Red Raider football has marked much of his life.
The deepest of those impressions comes from a game in 1976. In front of a season-high 54,187 fans at Jones AT&T Stadium, Allison and the undefeated Red Raiders took down consensus first team All-American Earl Campbell and the 15th-ranked Texas Longhorns, 31-28."Just being a part of that," he says. "I just think it was a part of Texas Tech history."
The Red Raiders went on to finish 10-2 that year and Allison was named the Most Valuable Player of the Southwest Conference.
It was 22 years later when Kingsbury helped usher in a new era of high-flying, wide-open offense at the turn of the century. In three full seasons as quarterback, he recorded more than 12,000 passing yards and total offense as one of the top quarterbacks in the nation.
Much like Allison, the beloved quarterback of a different era has returned to the campus, and continues to invest in the heartbeat of Lubbock – football.
"I think the city, just how much it has changed and been built around Texas Tech," Kingsbury said. "It's phenomenal to see, and I hope it only continues to grow."
Allison would have to agree. Throughout his career, Allison coached at universities across the country including Duke, Southern Miss, Auburn and Clemson. Yet, in the midst of that impressive, diverse career, it was the South Plains and Texas Tech culture that brought the Red Raider great back home.
It's the people," he said. "You're not going to find the genuine, tight-knit individuals that you find at Texas Tech anywhere else. That's what, to me, is the whole fabric of this place. It's the people that come to these games and the people that live in this city.
And so below his sanctuary of a conference room, the one that provides that stunning vantage point of Jones AT&T Stadium each weekday morning, the Red Raider football team will – for the 1,000th time – compete in a football game on a Saturday afternoon. The scoreboard will tell a story of victory and defeat. On Sunday, narratives and column inches will recap the action in the morning newspaper, and soon a full season of momentary jubilation and heartbreak will unfold again.
It's football season, and for 90 of Texas Tech University's 92 years of celebrated history, it's touched countless lives in various ways across campus and this city.
About a month before the 2015 season-opener, Allison laughs at the notion of 1,000 football games that now make up the history of Tech football.
"What's our record?" he chuckles.
Today, a new season of games begins. Tomorrow, and in many days and years to come, Red Raider football will continue to leave its indelible scarlet and black imprint on this school and this tight-knit community. And for Allison, he will watch it from above once more, taking in the memories one-by-one; a sign that all is well in the world of Texas Tech Football.
