Good morning West Texans and all you good, fine, friendly folks out there who wish you were . . .
Well, I guess winter was just waiting for Texas Tech to wrap-up the regular season before arriving on the South Plains! I must admit that it feels good and gets my blood pumping more for the Christmas season than the recent warm temps. I like seasons.
Speaking of seasons, bowl speculation season is now upon us after Tech’s lackluster win in Arlington over the Baylor Bears last night 20-13. The stage was all set for Mike Leach and crew to announce their presence with authority for either a Holiday or perhaps even return trip to the Cotton Bowl. The Tech fans showed up great. The stadium was rocking and even the Texas Tech defense was ready to do its part. The offense on the other hand laid the kind of egg that doesn’t exactly wow bowl reps and TV execs going into December.
Don Williams has a fantastic write-up of this game so we won’t comment on the X’s and O’s much other than to say again this team just doesn’t have the talent and experience this year to not play its best offensively and expect to win much less dominate quality opponents. Luckily it was a beat-up Baylor team last night and not some one else that might have really sent Tech fans into December on a sour note wondering where exactly this program is after the 2009 season.
And that gets us to the end of season battle damage report and trying to figure exactly how to rate this 8-4 team.
I predicted Texas Tech to go 8-4 so I’ve got no problems with the record. I think that’s right on par with the talent level that this team had compared to the teams they were playing. Of course that was all done in August before injuries to Tech and most other Big 12 South teams played a role in how we’d look at each game week-to-week. That’s what will make this season so frustrating for Tech fans. Not the final record, but how the Red Raiders got there.
If I’d told you in August that you’d lose at Houston and get stomped by A&M at home you’d think Tech was missing out on a bowl for the first time since Bill Clinton was President. If I’d told you Tech would smoke Oklahoma in Lubbock and dominate Nebraska in Lincoln you’d probably be making plans for a BCS trip.
The inconsistency of the season, mainly because of injuries to Taylor Potts at QB, numerous offensive line issues, twitter-gate and Facebook-scandal, the emergence of a split fan-base over Potts vs. Steven Sheffield and a defense that could look great and weak all on one drive drove Tech fans to drinking. Thankfully because of the vote last May by Lubbockites it was a short trip this fall!
Fair or not many fans will look at 2009 as a season of missed opportunity. You got to face Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Baylor all with-out their biggest weapons and you played an A&M team that no one thought could stay on the field with you and you came away with a 2-2 record out of that bunch.
The Houston game for many was decided not by plays on the field but by game-management and decision making on the sidelines by the Lead Pirate. How different might the season had been for Texas Tech had there been no 4th and one debacle and instead Tech takes the points and wins the game? Is there a Brandon Carter post-game melt-down that leads to a suspension and perhaps contributed to Potts getting waylaid by New Mexico? Does Twitter and Facebook-gate ever happen? Does Sticks even see the field other than mop-up duty after that? Does the Tech team team play with greater confidence after a Houston win and sweeps into the A&M game on a massive high playing for BCS hopes? I won’t even get into the ramifications of the cheap money-grab of moving the Texas game up and what it may have cost the program in the final analysis.
No, 8-4 in a rebuilding year is nothing to sneeze at and Tech fans should be impressed with how hard the Lead Pirate worked to keep things together through a year of odd occurences the likes we haven’t seen in his tenure in Lubbock. Had Tech “won the ones they were supposed to and lost the ones the were supposed to” this year most fans would be pretty pleased waking up today knowing it is either Holiday or Alamo Bowl for the Red Raiders.
As it is though, many will look back and wonder what might have been. That’s human nature. That’s college football.
MORE LATER
HYATT
Appears to me that every T$O team takes on T$O’s personality. After the game last night, he held the team hostage while administering the “Mangino treatment” for more than 30 minutes threatening the sandpit & run till you die penalties. I think we’ve gone about as far with T$O as we’re gonna, regardless how many years he remains here.