This week’s matchup between the Colorado Buffaloes and Red Raiders saw the field littered with an unusual item — tortillas. They were all hurled onto the turf by Texas Tech fans, not out of anger, but as part of their long-standing tradition. While Shedeur Sanders and the squad were naturally perplexed by the ordeal, this tradition has been in place for decades.
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Fans throwing bottles and flags onto the field is common in football, but Texas Tech fans have been hurling tortillas at their rivals since the 1980s. It is quite soft, not at all dangerous, which makes the tradition both unusual and intriguing. And while the exact origins of this particular practice are lost to time, there are a few theories that are in prevalence.
The Raiders’ fansite, Viva the Matadors, presents the first relatively simple theory. In 1989, when college students were prohibited from throwing soda lids onto the field, they switched to tortillas as an alternative, and this is possibly how the tortilla-throwing tradition began.
Another theory presents a more interesting version of the origin story of the strange Lubbock practice. In 1992, when Texas Tech faced their rivals, Texas A&M Aggies, it was a commentator’s remark that sparked the students to start launching tortillas.
According to the legend, an ESPN reporter joked that Lubbock “has nothing but Texas Tech football and a tortilla factory,” which didn’t sit well with the students.
What happened next? Texas Tech students brought their home-produced tortillas to the game and rained it on the field at the kickoff. They have continued the tradition to this day! And it isn’t limited to football games either, as the 2019 NCAA men’s Basketball Championship saw a similar ordeal.
While the college doesn’t allow players to bring in tortillas openly to the stadium for games, students think up creative measures to bypass the rule. Their latest victims were the Colorado Buffs, with Travis Hunter, Shedeur Sanders, and Coach Prime all reacting to the “odd” tradition!
The Buffs face tortillas at Texas Tech
Right from the start, Sanders and the crew were met with boos, followed by tortillas raining down onto the field. The influx was so overwhelming that even the home team’s head coach, Joey McGuire, had to intervene. Midway through the fourth quarter, McGuire appealed to the students over the microphone, asking them to stop throwing the tortillas.
Travis Hunter had a hilarious moment when a tortilla landed near him before a snap. The CB-cum-WR walked up to it calmly, picking it up and putting it away in his pants.
Shedeur, on the other hand, signed a tortilla post-game, later sharing how he was taken aback by the tradition:
“I didn’t know throwing tortillas on the field was legal… They had a whole cleanup crew. It was odd. I had never heard of that, you know, but yeah, it was different. I had to sign one and they kept throwing them at me so it was like I had to.”
“They kept throwing tortillas at me so I had to sign one.”
– @ShedeurSanders pic.twitter.com/PZZ3wRbYnu
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 10, 2024
Even Coach Prime reacted to his players’ welcome at Jones AT&T Stadium. Deion shared that since he had faced fans throwing every assortment of objects at him, he was just thankful that the tortillas wouldn’t injure anybody!
“They’ve thrown everything but my momma at me…Thank god a tortilla […] is soft.”
Texas Tech’s interesting tradition is truly one for the books and one that the Buffs are bound to remember for quite some time to come. That said, if you’re wondering why the tortillas have a hole in them, it helps launch them much further than a typical one.
