Total Disappointment ...

My family moved to Lubbock, TX the summer before my second grade year. There really isn't a whole lot to do in Lubbock on Saturday's other Texas Tech football ... and every Saturday I was watching Texas Tech football.


I have very fond memories of sitting in the "grass section" with all of my friends. It made my week if I caught one of the little red footballs that the Saddle Tramps threw out before the game. We would watch the first half, leave at halftime to play tackle football outside the athletic offices, then come back for the second half.


My heroes were Tyrone Thurman, James Gray, Zach Thomas, Tracey Saul, Robert Hall, Bam Morris, and Lloyd Hill. I didn't miss one game until my my senior year in high school the weekend after knee surgery. Of course that was the game where Zach Thomas intercepted a Corey Pullig pass and scored with 30 seconds left to beat #8 A&M.

Texas Tech was known as a scrappy team that did more with less, played tough defense, and had a good running game. Although we couldn't escape the shadows cast by Texas and Texas A&M, we relished the spoiler role. The prevailing thought was the the season was a success if we were able to beat either the Horns or the Aggies. When that wasn't enough anymore, Spike Dykes retired and Mike Leach began his tenure at the helm of the Red Raider football team.

I was a student when Dykes left and was excited about the new direction that our program was headed. We were no longer a "three yards and a cloud of dust" offense, the backup quarterback was no longer the fan favorite, and gone were the "SCORE DEFENSE SCORE" cheers from the student section. Leach brought the Air-Raid.

With a few years under his belt, Leach's teams put up ridiculous offensive numbers, refused to play defense, and was widely regarded as a perennial pretender. Our offense was "gimmicky", our QBs were "products of the system", we lost games we should win, and "defense" was something that Tech fans thought was just a way to pass time between offensive series.

Steadily, though, Leach was building a program to be respected. The win-loss record improved, Texas A&M was inarguably inferior, recuiting class rankings improved, fan support was at an all-time high, and, after replacing the defensive coordinator in 2007, the defense was improving.

Everything set up nicely for the 2008 season.

Senior QB ... check!
Biletnekoff-winning WR ... check!
Running game ... check!
Improved defense ... check!
Rabid fans ... check!

After going 10-0 with a #2 BCS ranking, Texas Tech faced OU in Norman with a chance to clinch the South Division. This was the chance that I had been waiting for since I was a kid watching from the grass. Being a fan through all of those painful seasons was finally going to pay off for me

Tech lost to OU in a manner that was absolutely deflating. I honestly felt that the stars had aligned for Tech this year and it was a long fall from the perch of being a front-runner for the BCS Championship to that of being an afterthought.

Now we are 11-1 in the best conference in the country with little to no shot at a BCS game and I'm totally disappointed. One day that kid will be rewarded for his years of service.