Countdown to Kickoff: 23 Days
PREVIOUS COUNTDOWN TO KICKOFF ENTRIES: 50 | 49 | 48 | 47 | 46 | 45 | 44 | 43 | 42
41 | 40 | 39 | 38 | 37 | 36 | 35 | 34 | 33 | 32 | 31 | 30 | 29 | 28 | 27 | 26 | 25 | 24
Texas Tech's 2016 football season will begin in exactly 23 days with a Sept. 3 kickoff against Stephen F. Austin.
Today, we continue our Countdown to Kickoff series with a notable way the number 23 relates to Red Raider football.
23: Steve Sloan went 23-12 in three seasons as Texas Tech's head coach.
Steve Sloan was one of the most successful Texas Tech coaches ever, winning 23 games and posting a 65.7 winning percentage during his three seasons leading the program.
Sloan's 1976 Red Raider team is one of just six in program history to win 10 or more games, as they posted a 10-2 mark and shared the Southwest Conference crown with the Houston Cougars.
Following the 1977 season, Sloan left Lubbock for the Ole Miss Rebels. He coached for nine more seasons - five at Ole Miss, four at Duke - but never recaptured the success that he had in Lubbock. In fact, the 7-5 mark that Sloan's final Texas Tech team posted in 1977 was his last winning season as a head coach. He went 20-34-1 with the Rebels and 13-31 with the Blue Devils.
Sloan transitioned into the administrative side of college athletics in the late 1980s, serving as the athletic director first at Alabama, and later North Texas, UCF and Chattanooga. He retired in 2006.
Tomorrow: 22 - We look at a Texas Tech record shared by three all-time greats.