The Texas Tech stadium experience will look different in 2020, especially in week one against Houston Baptist. There will only be 25 percent capacity for seating, and cardboard cutouts in the stands in place of living breathing humans. That 25 percent mark means no more than 15,113.5 tickets will be scanned, so the stands will look empty.

The tailgating will also be limited, with no Raider Alley or pregame concerts like in years past. Just single tailgating bubbles and no big party.

In conjunction, Texas Tech is also severely limiting who can even be on the field, with media credentials drastically reduced and support staff being reassigned to new areas of the stadium. Even the cheerleaders are banned from the sidelines.

Texas Tech's National Champion-caliber Pom Squad will be set up in the south endzone stands, while the Red Raider Cheerleaders will be on the grass hill area above the north endzone.

Texas Tech's Managing Director of the Office of Communications & Marketing Chris Cook told Talk 1340 that both squads will be "masked up, socially distanced, and fewer in number."

The good news is that the greatest entrance in all of college football will go on. The Masked Rider, atop Fearless Champion, will lead the Red Raiders out of the tunnel at 6:55 p.m. on Saturday, September 12th.


Even when the world is full of uncertainty, Fearless Champion and the Masked Rider are here to bring some normalcy to the proceedings.

Texas Tech vs. Iowa State tailgating (2017)

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