Lance Leipold rails at Texas Tech’s tortilla tradition, says pocket knife was thrown

Texas Tech football continued its stellar 2025 season on Saturday, Oct. 11, blowing past Kansas 42-17 to improve its record to 6-0 and further establish itself as the favorite to win the Big 12.

The discussion of the victory, however, wasn’t just about what transpired on the field, but what was thrown onto it from the stands.

After his team’s loss, Jayhawks coach Lance Leipold railed against Red Raiders fans and their time-honored tradition of throwing tortillas onto the field. Leipold added that during the third quarter, one of his staff members was hit with a pocket knife.

REQUIRED READING: Texas Tech football fans need to cut the tortilla crap before it’s too late | Giese

“It’s ridiculous,” Leipold said in his postgame news conference. “It’s supposed to be for safety and things like that. It’s been a culture that’s been accepted to a point and it hasn’t changed. Eventually, somebody’s going to be seriously hurt, unfortunately.”

Leipold voiced his frustrations to Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire in their postgame handshake, describing the tossing of objects as “bull-(expletive),” according to a video of the exchange from Red Raider Nation. McGuire was incredulous, responding “Coach, I can’t do anything about it. You want me to do something (expletive) about it?”

Leipold isn’t the only figure from around the Big 12 who has grown frustrated with the practice. During the offseason, Big 12 athletic directors voted 15-1 to approve a policy that would discipline home teams for their fans throwing items onto the field.

Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt was the lone dissenting vote.

Texas Tech’s tradition of throwing tortillas began in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The most popular theory on the ritual’s origins ties back to the ESPN broadcast of a 1992 game between Texas Tech and Texas A&M, during which an announcer before the game joked that Lubbock, Texas had “nothing but Texas Tech football and a tortilla factory.” After that, fans started bringing tortillas to games and throwing them on the field before kickoff.

The Red Raiders were penalized twice for objects being thrown on the field. One of the penalties, a Kansas spokesperson told the Topeka Capital-Journal, was due to the pocket knife hitting a Jayhawks staffer. One of the penalties forced Texas Tech to begin a drive inside its own 15-yard line while the other allowed Kansas to start its possession at its own 40.

Leipold wasn’t the only coach upset with the activity from the crowd at Jones AT&T Stadium. McGuire expressed his frustrations, as well, noting the tossing of tortillas and other objects could end up hurting a team with increasingly realistic College Football Playoff aspirations.

“We’ve got to find a way to do a better job as a whole, all of us,” McGuire said in his postgame news conference. “We’ve got two weeks to have a better plan and get the point across of what the rule is because it’s gonna catch up with us. The first one nearly did because the game was a little bit tighter than what you wanted. It’s gonna catch up with us. It’s frustrating.”

Continued McGuire:

“It’s kind of like whenever I talk to the guys. Make it about the football. If you get any kind of extracurricular penalties — like we had a 15-yarder late in the game — you made it about you. If you’re throwing tortillas more than once, now it becomes all about you. Is that a Red Raider? If you came to the game and you love this team and you’re passionate about this team, but yet you’re gonna throw another tortilla and you know it’s against the rules?

“We’ve got to do a better job and I’ve got to do a better job of expressing to the fans how important they are because the atmosphere tonight was absolutely incredible, electric.”