Tech starting season in quieter-than-usual stadium

LUBBOCK — When the Big 12 put out the 2020 conference football schedule last October, it shaped up as one of Texas Tech’s most attractive in several years.

The Red Raiders were going to have seven home games for the first time since 2009. With the Baylor game no longer played at a neutral site, Tech has five conference games at Jones AT&T Stadium for the first time in the Big 12 era.

Arizona would be only the second power-five non-conference opponent to visit Lubbock in five years, and it was Texas’ and Oklahoma’s turn to come to the South Plains.

That all sounded grand to the people at the Texas Tech ticket office, not to mention those actually playing the games.

Then COVID-19 hit.

The Arizona game became a casualty of the pandemic when the Pac-12 decided to scrap its fall schedule, and with Tech crowds capped at 25% of maximum capacity at Jones AT&T Stadium, the home-field advantage is negligible.

The reality of that will set in this week when Tech hosts No. 8 Texas at 2:30 p.m. Saturday. A game that could sell 60,000 tickets in a normal year instead will be played before perhaps 16,000.

“Any time the Jones isn’t completely packed out, we’re definitely at a disadvantage,” Tech senior defensive end Eli Howard said Monday. “It definitely is weird not to feed off the emotions and the energy of the fans, especially for me being on defense and whatnot.

“There’s no simulating that. There’s no replacing the energy, the feeling when the crowd goes crazy and you make a great play.”

The Red Raiders got a taste of it in the Sept. 12 opener against Houston Baptist, which was played before the tiniest turnout for a Tech home game since Nov. 17, 1962, when an 0-8 Red Raiders team beat Colorado in the next to last game of the season before a reported 10,000.

Announced attendance for the HBU game was 11,157, which Tech receiver KeSean Carter said, “takes me back to high school.”

Tech coach Matt Wells said, “You could hear your opponent a lot more. You could hear the other sideline a little bit more.”

“It’s pretty sad,” Carter said, “but it’s just part of what’s going on right now. The good thing about it is, we still get to play football and get some fans there.”

A Tech official said Monday afternoon about 1,500 tickets remain for sale. Since summer, Tech has invited fans to send in photos for “ImpersonRaiders,” cardboard cutouts of their family and friends to be placed in the stands. There were 307 of those for the opener, situated in the 50-yard line seats on the east side, and 385 purchased for this week.

Texas opened as a 17-point favorite. Any other year, the Red Raiders could beseech a rowdy crowd to help chip away at that disparity, maximizing the impact of a touchdown or a big takeaway by the home team.

Crowd limitations will be an equalizer for the road team in power-five conference games this year.

“The advantages are that we have better communication on the field,” Howard said. “You’re able to actually hear your coaches from the sideline screaming at you. So there are some advantages, but obviously the greatest disadvantage is you lose the energy, the momentum and everything that the crowd brings.”

Wells bluntly called it “a letdown,” both having the Arizona game canceled and not being able to bring all forces to bear in key games such as this week’s.

Wells said he can’t control it, so he’ll try to spend his emotional energy elsewhere.

“My guess is that this Saturday that number will be up and the intensity and the volume will be up a little bit more, because it’s Big 12, because it’s Texas,” Wells said. “I think we’ll have more students there is my hope, and we need it. We need it to be as loud as it can be and the biggest home-field advantage that we can have.

“But it certainly is a different feeling and it is a different vibe, just because you’re used to having sellouts in this stadium and a lot more full — especially the lower bowl and just the loudness and I think how it kind of echoes in our stadium. It’s not quite as much with not as many fans.”