The Red Raiders are in the midst of an awful string of results. As a result, head coach Tim Tadlock speaks on how a turnaround could begin.
LUBBOCK, Texas - Sunday in Waco, the Texas Tech Red Raiders snapped a streak of nine straight Big 12 losses in the series finale against Baylor. The 8-3 win in Game 3 ends the third-to-last conference set of what has still been a forgetful season on the diamond for the men in scarlet and black.
The Red Raiders are 23-24 on the season and 7-17 in Big 12 play. Their record includes losses to out-of-conference mid-major teams like Incarnate Word and CSU Bakersfield.
It's a season that shines a bright, nostalgic spotlight on "how far Tech baseball's fallen," says Lubbock Avalanche-Journal columnist Don Williams.
Including the series loss to the Bears, Texas Tech has lost six straight Big 12 series, most recently sweeps at Utah and against Oklahoma State at home - neither of which are even the best the conference has to offer.
As Williams notes, another rough season is likely to end outside of the NCAA tournament for the third year in a row. That's a dramatic change in program identity following the four College World Series trips and three Big 12 titles between 2014 and 2019.
Considering the polar opposite state of other athletics programs on campus - such as teams who've found major success in conference and national competition lately like softball, basketball, soccer, and of course, football - Williams offers the following question.
"Does the baseball program have the resources in the NIL era to recapture its glory days?"
Veteran head coach Tim Tadlock, the program's all-time winningest coach in his 14th season at the helm, gave his response.
"That’s a good question," Tadlock said after the home sweep at the hands of the Cowboys. "It’s harder and harder in college athletics to retain really good players because of what’s going on. I think our resources have gotten better in the last six months. I do.
"But when you don’t win — like we’re not doing right now … It’s a lot easier to retain guys when you go to Omaha. Guys want to stay, right? They get a little taste of it, and they want to stay. They want to teach the next group how to get there. Right now, we haven’t been very good the last couple of years."
He acknowledged, however, that Tech doesn't meet the spending other programs around the country, like in the SEC, where baseball reaches football-level fandom in the spring.
"Your resources, if you really want to look at an SEC roster — you can do the research on what they’re putting in it — we haven’t had that," Tadlock said. Williams said the coach admits that he is "guilty as anybody" for believing the baseball squad could adapt well enough to continue winning through the old-fashioned approach. That's clearly not been the case since the pandemic.
Things could finally be changing, however, when it comes to how many scholarships are available for each team. Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt announced earlier this academic year that each sport would receive an increase in scholarships, and baseball is on track to have 34, which is nearly triple the previously allowed amount.
Amid NIL, transfer portal, and revenue-sharing changes in college athletics, Tadlock says this is "a good start."
However, if this recent stretch is any indication, there is still work to be done.
"Right now in this climate, we’re always thinking about that," the 57-year-old coach said. "You’re always thinking about what you can do for guys, and the crazy thing is, the more success they have, the more you’re thinking about it."
Tadlock added: "We’ve got kids here right now. You’re always trying to get a player, and that doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop 365 days a year. I think we’ve got a staff that loves what we do. I think we want to get it right, and I think we can get it right again. I’m pretty hardheaded."
