For Texas Tech to firmly position itself in the company of college football’s elite programs, building a good-sized stadium came first.
And so on Nov. 29, 1947, the first game was played at Clifford B. and Audrey Jones Stadium.
Yet, that wasn’t nearly as fascinating as what took place between the 1959 and 1960 seasons. The floor of the stadium was excavated and lowered and seven stadium sections were rolled back 226 feet to their current positions.
The excavation started with the last game of the 1959 season, a Lubbock High-Monterey skirmish. I can’t describe it as vividly as Ralph Sellmeyer and James Davidson did in their 1978 book “Texas Tech Football: The Red Raiders”.