Lady Raider Evening

We used to go to quite a few Lady Raider games, but with both boys involved in sports we sort of fell off that habit the last couple of years.  When I saw that the Aggies were coming to town Wednesday night I suggested to Lisa that it had been too long since we’d been, and the Raiders could use the help against ranked A&M.

So we enjoyed an evening with Lady Raider Nation again.  A much smaller Lady Raider Nation than we used to be in.  Even though the crowd was better than they’ve been averaging it was still pretty sparse.  The crowd was quietly enthusiastic as both teams struggled to score early.  Tech trailed 4-2 before taking a lead.  The lead was never huge, but spread out toward ten then pulled back closer to even over and over.

When Tech came back out after halftime still leading the crowd got more into it.  As they kept that lead, and stretched it to ten a couple of times the crowd got louder and louder.  The Ags would not go away, but they never could get over the hump and the crowd just got louder and louder.  Not loud like the “old days”, but the ones that were there were having some fun. 

The Lady Raiders made it a little interesting between 2 minutes and about 30 seconds, but pulled away with some free throws to win it.  It was fun.  I’m glad we went.  This win along with their previous win against Texas at home will help the Lady Raider’s chances, but they’ve got more work to do.  This is one, though, I think coach would agree they had to have.

But I miss the good old days.  Ah well. 

Did Graham Harrell Just Get Dissed?

Harrell was not in the list of invitees to the Heisman presentation Saturday night.  It was generally accepted, judging by the articles I’d read over the last couple of weeks, that he would be.  It was also generally accepted that he was likely to finish fourth, so it would be a token appearance at best.  Still, having a Tech player there would be nice pub for Tech, and the invite alone would have been a nice little piece of recognition for Graham.

But, it’s not to be.  There is apparently such a wide gap in the vote counts between #3 and #4 that the bean counters decided a fourth invite was not to be.  They say they have invited as few as three and as many as six in years past.

Harrell seems to be handling it gracefully.  Inside you know he’s hurt, but his response seems to show that the people who’d been saying winning the Heisman was not a targeted goal of his, such as his father Sam, were right.  He’d accept it if it came his way, but that was not what he’d set his sights on.

Locally it seems to be getting some play this morning as “Tech got dissed again!  When are we ever going to get some respect!”.  I guess I can understand that, but as I’ve grown older and become more aware of how this and other similar awards are actually given, it impresses me less and less each year.  I hope I’m being honest in saying that, and not belittling the Heisman because our guy not only didn’t win it but didn’t get invited to the party.  I think I am.  I’m sure I and other Tech fans would brag about having a Heisman winner in the program for all our remaining days if a Red Raider won one, but I also recognize it’s going to take something phenomenal for that to happen.  Tech is just not on the national map when it comes to things like this.  Either win every game, or go 11-1 and be in the discussion year after year after year, and this might change.

Towards the end of the year, voters are not looking for players to add to their ballot, they are looking for players to eliminate.  They want to pare it down to the three, and feel good about the order of those three.  Unfortunately for Graham, a beat down at OU and a less than inspiring game for the team against Baylor probably doomed him.  The fact that he shattered two fingers in the second quarter against Baylor didn’t get enough air time and thus no “hero” votes.  The voters saw a reason to pare him out of the top three there.

Dems the berries!  I say rather than b***h and moan about this, I choose to reflect on the entire year, 11-1 and possibly 12-1, the magic season that was and have NO reason to hang my head about this program or about Graham not getting invited.  You know, they say no one else has the power to make you unhappy – you control whether you’re happy yourself.  I choose to be happy. 

Who Will Win the 2009 Cotton Bowl?

This will be the last Cotton Bowl played IN the Cotton Bowl.  Next year it moves to Jerry’s Wonderworld…..

It’s Actually Possible for Tech to be in the Fiesta Bowl?!?!?!

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http://www.bcsfootball.org/bcsfb/eligibility

Extremely unlikely even if the cards fall just right, but something was explained to me today that prevents that one last flicker of hope from dying out….

What if:

• OU wins the Big XII CCG, finishes in the top two of the BCS rankings and goes to the BCS title game.
• Florida beats Alabama in the SEC title game, but close, and Alabama ends up #3 in the BCS rankings and Florida is #1 or #2 so in the BCS title game (I gotta believe beating undefeated #1 gets FL in)
• Texas slips to #4 in the BCS rankings

OU vs. Florida in the BCS title game.

Here it gets fun.

#3 ranked Alabama is a guaranteed BCS participant under BCS provision #5 (“at large” team from a BCS conf which finishes ranked #3).

Provision #6 then does not apply!  To wit, the #4 ranked team is NOT guaranteed a spot because that provision only applies if provision #5 is not satisfied!

The Fiesta Bowl is free to chose whatever replacement team they want for their lost Big XII champion spot that went to the BCS title game.

Now, really, politically the pick will be Texas….but it’s not required.

The Fiesta Bowl reps love Tech.  Tech beat Texas head to head.

Somehow I get the feeling I’ll wake up tomorrow and figure out where I went wrong with all this…..ain’t gonna happen, but maybe I’ll have sweet dreams tonight anyway? 

Sips Lose Popularity Contest

The Dirt Theives get in the CCG!  The Sips are left out.

So was Tech (big surprise).  The only way Tech will ever play in the CCG is to leave absolutely no doubt.  They will never win a popularity contest.  I understand it.

I wrote previously of my thoughts about the tiebreaker going all the way down to a BCS ranking popularity contest, and leaving our conference division champ in the hands of outsiders.  It’s wrong.  Find some other way that leaves it completely within the conference.

Next week bowl invitations will come out.  Oregon State lost their game they needed to win to lock up a Rose Bowl invite, so now the Pac-10 might send only the one team to the BCS.  Who does that open things up for?  Utah is certainly in.  Boise State?  Is it not possible for three teams from a single conference to go?  I seem to recall a #4 Cal team being left out a few years ago, and a highly ranked (#4?) Missouri team last year.  So even at #7 Tech is almost certainly headed for the Cotton.  Better hope OU wins the CCG, or Missouri will be in the BCS with Texas and OU probably gets Cotton and Tech is pushed even further down the list.  An OU win puts them in the BCS title game, sends Texas to the Fiesta Bowl and Tech to the Cotton Bowl.  OSU would go to the Holiday I would think.

I actually hope all the Big XII South teams win out and that 3 of the top 5 teams in the country end up being Big XII South teams.  And if OSU can win impressively maybe they move back in to the top 10?  That would be way cool.  The Big XII South is the BEAST of college football this year!

The Great Big XII BCS Debate

Now that the dreaded three way tie is nearing reality in the Big XII south, it is fairly humorous to read the debate going on about whether OU or Texas deserves to be ranked higher in the BCS (which will determine the South rep in the conference championship game).  Fans of each team are about to give themselves an apoplexy trying to convince their rivals why their team should be ranked ahead of the other.

Tech is basically being left out of this debate, which is not entirely fair, but a 65-21 beatdown in prime time will do that to you, and besides since when is life fair?  Tech’s hopes rest not so much with the voters as with the football team up in Stillwater.  Not a comfortable position to be in, but I guess I’d rather have an outside chance than no chance.

Anyway, the circular arguments being made by Horns and Sooners all over is hilarious to read.  They at various times completely ignore that Texas trailed and was fairly well dominated for three full quarters in Lubbock before their “last second loss” to Tech, and also tend to want to completely discount that OU actually lost to Texas head to head as irrelevent.  Each side alternately counts or discounts the same debate points depending only on whether it serves their purpose at the moment.  For example, head to head is the supreme argument for Texas fans, until you bring Tech into the picture then it suddenly doesn’t count.  For OU it’s currently that they beat the #2 team in the country, but develop a sudden memory condition when reminded they were #1 when Texas beat them.  “Who is the better team NOW” arguments are everywhere, but with such a blindingly subjective criteria to work with, that gets no one anywhere (but maybe a shouting contest).  Horns say “Horns”, Sooners say “Sooners”, and we’re right back where we started.

Perhaps it’s that this is fairly new territory for Tech that I’m not all that worked up about being left out of the discussion even though we are in the three way tie.  I look at it as Tech had their chance to grab the brass ring Saturday night and fired blanks.  If we get left out of something, take care of business on the field next time – that is the essense of the game.  It’s for the players to settle on the field, not the fans in blogs.

I will say this, however.  The Big XII conference should pay heed to what’s happening this year and get the tie-breaker system fixed so that in the future it doesn’t come down to a popularity contest controlled by people not even in the conference.  The fifth tie-breaker of “best BCS ranking” smacks of lazy thinking by a group of people who decided “that cannot possibly happen so it doesn’t really matter what the fifth tie-breaker is”.  I can understand that, but it MAY now happen (is likely even), so go to work this off-season and get that rule fixed.  I don’t care how esoteric the resulting rule is, leaving it partly up to Urban Meyer, Nick Saban and their like is stupid beyond belief.

The Biggest Thud in the History of the Year!

Previously I said,

but there is a quiet confidence…

I guess that quiet confidence was actually stupor……..

Crikey!  What a beat down.  I never saw that coming.  I was thinking this year’s team was different.

And it still better be, because they need to pick their collective behinds up off the floor and get after it!  There’s PLENTY to play for this year.  Let me tell you, people, 11-1 don’t happen around here just every day.  That’s still within reach.  And with a minor miracle in Stillwater, ye ol’ Red Raiders could still be in the Big XII CCG and a BCS game after that.  That could still be HUGE for this program.

Ok, the MNC hopes are gone.  So be it.  I’m proud we were in the hunt as long as we were, and we haven’t even been IN that conversation before.  But we have a chance to be something really special yet.  Go take what’s yours!  Then let the cards fall where they may as regards conference championships.

And BEAT THE PANTS OFF WHOEVER YOU PLAY IN A BOWL GAME!

The Biggest Game in the History of the Year – Take Three!

It just keeps getting better and better for those Red Raiders.  The hype for Saturday’s game at Norman is significant.  Lots of media attention.  As they say, the eyes of college football will be on Tech for the third time this year.  You cannot buy the type of PR that gives Tech.

I am SO looking forward to this game.  I have some of the same feelings about it I did about Texas, to wit I don’t think we have to get lucky or play out of our minds to win.  We’re every bit as good as they are, better in some areas.  There is just the feeling that if you avoid mistakes and penalties you are going to be in this thing at the end.  This year’s club has a better attitude about “big games” than any I’ve been around at Tech.  “Just take care of business.”

I’m terrible at predicting games so no score predictions will be coming from me (and I don’t want to offend the “woof gods”), but there is a quiet confidence that Tech can go into Norman and get this job done.  It’s a showcase moment.  Here’s hoping we shine!

Ten and Oh!

Wow!

Who woulda thunk it!  The Texas Tech Red Raiders are 10-0 and ranked #2 in the country.  Right?  It is #2, right? 

Check again Sunday…

They have a week off (so does OU) before a monumental game in Norman.  OU is tough, tough, tough.  They have been blowing people out in the 1st quarter, and usually the 2nd quarter, 3rd quarter….   Not so much the 4th quarter.  Dude, when you’re up 40 points……

I say go up to Norman with an attitude that there is NOTHING to lose.  Play lights out, reckless abandon, all those cliches.

But for one glorious night in this Red Raider’s life, my team is 10-0 and in the national championship race.  How sweet it is!

A Game to Remember

My goodness.  I’m not the elder Red Raider by a long stretch, but I’ve been to my share of Tech games.  I don’t think any of them compare to the one we went to Saturday night.

I’ve not seen a Tech defense dominate a Texas team like that since Not Ready Freddy was in charge when Spike and company put a stomping on the Horns.  Tech’s defense was outstanding.  The safety on Texas’s first offensive play set the tone for the entire night.  Tech left a few too many points on the field, though, and that never-give-up kid from Tuscola Jim Ned just about made them pay for it.  Texas came storming back.  When they got the run up the middle to go ahead 33-32 I thought it was going to be another heartbreaker for Tech.

But the kickoff return was good, giving Tech field position.  The first several plays down the field were executed well, and suddenly it looks like we might get in position to try a game winning field goal!  But wait!  What’s been our Achilles heel all year?  Yuck!  Not feeling so confident about that after all.

Then Graham throws a pass out to the flat to Britton, and the ball bounces off his hands high into the air!  OH NO!  It’s gonna get picked off!  HE DROPPED IT!  Holy Cow!

Then the play.  The one that’s going to go down in Red Raider lore with the likes of Zack Thomas’ pick six to win against A&M, with the catch and lateral to Donnie Anderson years ago to beat those same Aggies, with the 3rd and 26 pass from Jamie Gill to Anthony Manyweather down in Austin to shock the Longhorns.  Pick a play in Tech history.  This was is right up there with all of them.  It might be the most amazing play I’ve ever seen them pull off.

When Harrell committed to go deep on that pass, my fear was there would not be enough time left even if Crabtree caught it to get in another play to try the field goal.  Crabtree’s catch, breaking the tackle, staying in bounds and stepping into the endzone for the game winner is the stuff of legend.

When Zach ran the pick back against A&M, Lisa, Justin and I were sitting in section 6.  I went ballistic.  I’ve never screamed like that in my life.  I was high-fiving people all around me.  Just going berserk.  Later that day, we met my family for a dinner out and my dad asked Justin what I did when Zack ran that back.  “Pops, Dad went crazy!  I thought he’d lost his mind!”.

As luck would have it, Justin was able to make this game with us (he’s missed several due to work committments).  It was great.  I’m sure Justin and Shane would tell Pops that Dad lost his mind again.  Once again I screamed to the point of losing my voice.  Shear excitement!  I told the family, and my nephew Gary who got to go to the game and sat not too far from us, that I’ve seen a lot of great Tech games over the years, but this one might be the best I’ve ever seen.

A few pictures were taken.  It’s hard to get good shots at night, and a few of these are from my camera phone and the resolution is really too small to see what’s going on.  Unfortunately, one of the photos that did come out clear shows me screaming my fool lungs out after the Crabtree TD……