Seventeen years ago, the Texas Tech football program entered a pivotal season. After going 14-12 with two bowl losses in the first two seasons of the Mike Leach era, fans were expecting the team to take a step forward in the senior season of quarterback Kliff Kingsbury.
Knowing what we know now about what Leach would achieve at Tech, it is hard to believe that in the first half of his ten-season run in Lubbock, a considerable portion of the fan base was not pleased with his lack of significant progress. And in 2002, there was a large contingent of fans still upset about the fact that Leach’s predecessor Spike Dykes, a West Texas good ole boy legend, was essentially forced into retirement following the 1999 season.