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Kirby Hocutt says Texas Tech football will no longer 'encourage nor permit' tortilla toss
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- Kirby Hocutt says Texas Tech football will no longer 'encourage nor permit' tortilla toss
Texas Tech football fans will no longer be allowed to throw tortillas at opening kickoff of home games inside Jones AT&T Stadium.
Tech director of athletics Kirby Hocutt joined head football coach Joey McGuire for his weekly Monday press conference to announce the new rules. This comes on the heels of last week's memo sent by the Big 12 Conference to league institutions that calls for a $100,000 fine for schools that are penalized for fans throwing items onto the field during games.
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"As we go forward," Hocutt said, "we are no longer going to encourage nor permit the throwing of tortillas at the opening kickoff for our home football games."
Hocutt said Tech staffers will monitor the stands during games to monitor tortillas throwers, if there are any. Any fans caught throwing tortillas onto the field will be ejected from the game and have their ticket purchasing privileges revoked for the remainder of the academic year.
Hocutt and McGuire both showed contrition in leaning into the Big 12 AD's 15-1 vote to re-emphasize an existing rule that penalizes schools whose fans throw items onto the field.
"The situation is on me," Hocutt said. "I leaned into this of throwing tortillas at the beginning of the football season. Now I must ask everyone to stop, and I must ask our staff to enforce it on game days."
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The Red Raiders are 6-1 overall and 3-1 in Big 12 play after suffering a 26-22 loss at Arizona State last week. Texas Tech hosts Oklahoma State on Saturday to start the home stretch of the season with all of their postseason possibilities still in play.
"I ask the Red Raider Nation to continue to give these players, this team and all our Red Raiders all of our support and energy, "Hocutt said, "to make sure we give them every possible chance to accomplish our goal of getting to Arlington for the Big 12 Conference championship and the college football playoff.
"The moment that we sit in today is one that Red Raiders have dreamed about for a long, long time, and this team, Coach McGuire, his coaching staff and our fan base has worked extremely hard towards this goal, and we can accomplish it week by week."
McGuire read a social media post, shared by Skyler Gill-Howard and to the rest of the team, from a Texas Tech fans that said, in part, "I've been waiting for the better part of 20 years for a team like this. I can't express my joy."
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"(Skyler) sent that to our team, to all of our leaders," McGuire said. "There's about 25 in this group text. And then he followed up with, 'Remember what you're playing for is bigger than just you. Our dedicated fans have been waiting decades when you go out there, don't only play for you. Do it for the team and do it for all the Red Raiders that have been waiting."
Hocutt said messaging will go out to fans throughout the week leading to the game against the Cowboys. He noted "we have allowed tortillas to enter the stadium" but that will no longer be the case.
This story has been updated with additional quotes.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech football fans no longer allowed to throw tortillas at kickoff
