As usual, the Red Raiders’ Schedule is built with high-level success in mind.
In wrapping up fall workouts, Texas Tech Baseball Head Coach Tim Tadlock delivered another line that perfectly sums up his program’s attitude when it steps on the field.
“We just need a bus and some sack lunches, and we’ll go play baseball,” the ninth-year Red Raiders skipper said.
But not only does that represent his team’s attitude, it also reflects his understanding of scheduling in the age of the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI). Tadlock figured out long ago how important playing top-level teams is when it comes to having a nice, shiny resume for the NCAA selection committee to review at the end of the season. And it doesn’t necessarily mean all those games have to be at home, either.
One thing we know about the Red Raiders and Tadlock, is they will go and play anybody, anytime. Past trips to Florida State, Mississippi State, the Shriners College Classic in Houston and tournaments in Round Rock and Frisco bear that out. For 2021, in the age of COVID-19, that mantra still holds true, even after having the initial schedule that included the likes of Clemson, Minnesota and Dallas Baptist blown up by scheduling limitations implemented by other conferences across the country.
And even if there aren’t as many games on the schedule due to one-year due to the challenges of finding teams to come to Dan Law Field at Rip Griffin Park, with the 51 games Texas Tech will play in 2021, that NCAA tournament resume should be just as impressive.
Not only is the Big 12 expected to be one of the top leagues from top to bottom this year, with most experts saying up to eight of the nine league teams could be in the postseason, but Texas Tech’s non-conference schedule stacks up with anyone in the nation. The Red Raiders will play five teams who were in the 2019 NCAA Tournament and two others who are perennial championships contenders.
Leading the season off is, perhaps, the highlight tournament of the entire season anywhere in the U.S. For the first time since the Big 12 tournament was held at Globe Life Park in 2004, Arlington will host a college baseball tournament involving multiple Big 12 teams when the College Baseball Showdown invades the new, domed Globe Life Field on opening weekend.
This tournament features six of the top 10 teams ranked in the D1Baseball.com Top 25: Tech (3), Ole Miss (6), Mississippi State (7), Arkansas (8), Texas (9) and TCU (10). Not only will this tournament give everyone involved a solid start in the RPI but will let everyone know exactly how good they are to start the season.
The Big 12 is limiting teams to as few midweek non-conference games as possible that involve long trips or overnight stays once the Big 12 slate starts. Other teams in the Big 12 closer to metropolitan areas can easily adjust with myriad teams in their area. But Texas Tech will play almost all of its non-conference games before opening league play against Oklahoma State on March 19.
Tech’s home opener comes a week after Arlington when the Red Raiders host Houston Baptist for three games Feb. 24-26. It will be the second straight year for Tech and HBU to meet as the Huskies were part of a three-way opening weekend slate with Northern Colorado a year ago, and Tech beat HBU 5-1 and 24-3 that weekend.
Following a two-game midweek clash with Texas Southern at Rip Griffin Park (March 2-3), the Red Raiders return to the road for a second tournament in a big-league park, this time returning to the Shriners College Classic (March 5-7) for the first time since 2017. This time, the Red Raiders will see familiar in-state foes Texas State (7 p.m. Friday), Sam Houston State (3 p.m. Saturday) and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (11 a.m. Sunday). This will be the first time to face both the Bobcats and the Islanders since 2011, while the last time Tech saw Sam Houston State Bearkats they were eliminating the Red Raiders from the 2017 Lubbock Regional.
Tech then puts together its longest home stretch of the season – 12 games – starting with a two-game set against Gonzaga (March 9-10). The Bulldogs were projected as the favorites in the West Coast Conference in 2019 after appearing in the 2018 NCAA tournament.
Texas Tech’s last non-conference weekend (March 12-15) before starting Big 12 play sees the Red Raiders host 2019 NCAA tournament team UConn for four games. The Huskies have made the NCAAs in six of the last 10 full seasons and will present a challenge on the mound with returning starter Joe Simeone and University of North Carolina transfer Ben Casparius, as well as a wealth of experience in the field.
The following weekend brings the onslaught of Big 12 play starting with a home series at Rip Griffin Park against No. 20 Oklahoma State. It will be the first meeting between the teams since the highly charged, memorable 2019 NCAA Super Regional in Lubbock.
Tech will return to non-conference play the next weekend, hosting the University of South Florida for three games (March 26-28). The Bulls were an NCAA tournament team in 2018 before sliding to a 26-27 mark in 2019. They too are not afraid to play top competition as five of their 11 losses in 2020 were to teams in the top 15.
From there, it’s mostly conference play to the end of the regular season. One big change, however, is that, for the first time in several years, the Red Raiders will be allowed to play during final exams. Normally, Texas Tech takes that weekend off to allow players to concentrate on academics, but this year the Red Raiders will host Illinois-Chicago for four games May 7-9. The Flames were the 2019 Horizon League champions and were picked to win the league again in 2020 before the season was shut down.
Texas Tech’s only other non-conference games are a two-game midweek series at Rip Griffin Park against Stephen F. Austin (April 13-14) and a Tuesday non-conference clash against Oklahoma on April 20 at Hodgetown Stadium in Amarillo, home of the Sod Poodles.
Following the series against OSU, the Red Raiders will be on the road in conference play in four of the next six weekends, starting with a trip to a Kansas State (April 1-3) team that has drawn some national attention for its rotation, featuring left-hander Jordan Wicks and right-hander Carson Seymour. Texas Tech then welcomes No. 10 TCU to Lubbock for three games (April 9-11) to face a Horned Frogs team that is loaded with experience and pitching depth after making it through the draft and offseason relatively unscathed.
The rest of the schedule sees Texas Tech travel to 14th-ranked West Virginia (April 16-18), a team that has taken four of the last six games against the Red Raiders, including two of three in Morgantown in 2019. The Red Raiders host Baylor (April 23-25) and face a Bears team with a solid pitching corps and plenty of experience in the field and at the plate. But the Red Raiders have won 10 of the last 12 games between the teams in Lubbock.
After that comes Texas Tech’s toughest stretch of games the entire season with back-to-back road trips at Texas (April 30-May 2) and Oklahoma (May 14-16) sandwiched around the Illinois-Chicago series. The Longhorns are ranked as high as No. 9 by D1Baseball.com and have one of the top pitchers in the nation in right-hander Ty Madden. The Sooners had a very complete team in 2020 but have to replace an entire starting rotation decimated by the MLB draft. Still, OU comes into 2021 with one of the most experienced teams in the nation and one of the top young players in infielder Peyton Graham.
Texas Tech winds up the regular season against Kansas (May 20-22) at home, facing what could be one of the best Jayhawks teams in veteran head coach Ritch Price’s tenure in Lawrence. The Jayhawks have experience abound and depth in the pitching staff.
Getting through a 56-game schedule in a normal season with a resume good enough to impress the selection committee is hard enough. Doing so in the age of COVID, with the uncertainty week-to-week of knowing which players will be available and which teams might have to put things on a pause suddenly, makes it that much harder.
Texas Tech is not alone in this venture. The 51 games on the Red Raiders’ schedule are about in the middle of the road of the rest of the conference. TCU has the most scheduled at this point with 55 games, followed by Texas and Oklahoma with 54 each and Kansas State at 52. By contrast, West Virginia and Baylor have schedule just 48 games apiece.
If the Red Raiders take care of business, though, the schedule should be strong enough to warrant yet another Regional and Super Regional weekend in Lubbock. In a sense, that would make this season seem about as normal as anything else.
