Meet Texas Tech’s Line: Mankind, The Terrorist, Kool-Aid, Burrito Tower, Uncle Ray-Ray

Texas Tech is the eccentric’s team of choice: set in the odder-than-you’d-think burg of Lubbock, featuring a mascot who looks like Zorro after a productive visit to the local gun shop, and led by a coach with an avowed interest in Vikings, pirates, and rollerblading down the middle of busy roads. Clearly, if you would like to let your freak flag fly in the world of football, western Texas is the place to do it as long as you’re winning games and racking up a jillion points in the process. ↵↵Judging from this interview with Red Raiders linemen Stephen Hamby, the infectious freakiness of Texas Tech’s football wormhole spreads all the way down to the fundament of the team, the offensive line. ↵

↵↵⇥“We got Uncle Ray-Ray, Rylan Reed. We got the Burrito Tower, which is (guard) Louis (Vasquez), think about it,” Hamby said. “We’ve got the terrorist which is (center) Shawn Byrnes because he’s from Arizona. We’ve got (Carter), who is Mankind, we don’t really call him that I just call him that sometimes, and then Byrnes is Kool-Aid.” ↵↵Byrnes is called Kool-Aid because of his similarity to the cartoon spokes-jug Kool-Aid man when he wears a red Texas Tech jersey. If you don’t dub a close friend with skinny legs and a big torso “Kool-Aid” immediately after reading this, you have failed in your duties as a friend to properly mock their physique, personal defects, and professional failings. Clearly, this is also further evidence that Texas Tech is the Dos Equis Man of teams, and that they indeed are the Most Interesting Team in the World. (Their beards alone have lived more than lesser men’s entire bodies.)↵