Texas Tech asks followers to cease throwing tortillas on area

After a crackdown by the Big 12, Texas Tech will flatten its tortilla-tossing custom.

Red Raiders athletic director Kirby Hocutt joined head coach Joey McGuire throughout a Monday information convention to announce that the college is “no longer going to encourage nor permit the throwing of tortillas” on the opening kickoff of their soccer video games.

Texas Tech followers have tossed tortillas within the crowd at Jones AT&T Stadium because the Nineteen Nineties.

In August, Big 12 ADs voted 15-1 to evaluate a 15-yard penalty after two warnings for objects being thrown on the sphere, with Hocutt the lone dissenter. After the vote, he tweeted, “the rules can change. But our tradition will not” and instructed a brand new custom of launching tortillas for the opening kickoff.

But after a raucous scene in Lubbock throughout the Red Raiders’ 42-17 win over Kansas on Oct. 11, through which Texas Tech was penalized twice for followers throwing tortillas, the Big 12 amended its new offseason rule. There can be one warning, adopted by a 15-yard penalty together with a $100,000 high quality.

A league supply instructed ESPN that the change was as a result of Tech was unable to get the state of affairs below management.

So with the No. 14 Red Raiders off to the most effective begins in class historical past at 6-1 — with an opportunity to win the Big 12 and make the College Football Playoff down the stretch — Hocutt and McGuire have requested followers to do their half.

McGuire stated he understands the custom, as a result of his personal daughter, as a pupil, even participated.

“We know that as Red Raiders, no one tells us what to do. We make our own decisions,” Hocutt stated. “This situation is on me. I leaned into throwing tortillas at the beginning of the football season. Now I must ask everyone to stop.”

Hocutt stated Tech’s occasion operations employees will encourage and remind followers on the gate to not deliver tortillas in, and they’ll ask followers to discard them. If they get them in, they will once more ask them to go them to ushers within the aisles who can discard them. Then, if any are thrown and followers are caught, their ticket privileges for all sports activities shall be suspended for the rest of the 12 months.

Hocutt stated it was evident throughout Saturday’s loss at Arizona State that the Texas Tech model is stronger than ever. He was requested by a reporter if it is a coincidence that the Big 12 is cracking down on them now, due to the strides they’ve made of their program.

“We want to be the team that when we’re beat, their fans storm the field because it means that much to play Texas Tech football right now. So I can just say 15-1 still exists,” Hocutt stated, referencing that offseason vote. “It’s us against the world in this Big 12 conference, and our goal is to get to Arlington and to raise that trophy.”