Perspective: Get Some, Tech Fans

Perspective noun ~ the faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship.

Perspective noun ~ the totality of facts that keeps you from asking out the hot girl in the corner because she’s your cousin (I’m lookin’ at you Aggies).

The game on Saturday was horrible, atrocious, and just plain embarrassing; however, the end is not near. Gridiron Armageddon is not rapidly approaching. The weeping and gnashing of teeth of Tech fans can be put on hold.

Many are lamenting the end of Texas Tech football . . . forever. It is as if this year is the only year they have been a Tech fan. Emotions seem to be running wild. People are angry, disappointed, saddened. Given this past week’s debacle, they have a right to be so, but let’s not get our jock straps in a bunch. We need some perspective.

The loss to Iowa State was embarrassing, but not uncharacteristic of Texas Tech football. For some reason some people seem to think Tommy Tuberville has destroyed Tech football and that Leach would have won the last two games by a combined 40 points. In an effort to show why this is wrong, I am going to subtract something a lot of fans seem to be using, and add something few seem to have; emotion and perspective, respectively.

First, Tech fans, like all good fans, are emotionally invested in their team. That is a good thing . . . most of the time. Emotional investment is bad when it comes to evaluating the team (or anything really). Those emotions take over and cause a lack of objectivity which, in turn, creates a lack of understanding regarding the subject at hand. There are tons of examples of this type of behavior in politics. For example, look at gun control. Some argue that we need gun control because “innocent people/children are killed with guns.” While this may be true, it is an emotional plea and completely avoids other reasons for guns (2^nd Amendment, protection from government/criminals, hunting, etc.). Another example would be social security. Many would say, “We have to have social security so that my grandma can pay her rent.” Again, this is an emotional argument. It tells us nothing about the policy except your grandma needs to pay rent. From the right, a good example would be, “We have to keep fighting in Iraq because of those who died in 9/11.” Again, this is not a policy, it’s an emotional response. Emotionally-based evaluations are bad in just about every realm of life because they create horribly skewed solutions to factually deprived—and possibly nonexistent—problems.

Tech fans seem to be attached to these emotional responses. No one cares about perspective. While the outcome of ISU game makes me want to puke, that emotional response should not govern the objective reality of the situation. I have heard and read lots of whining about how Tech football has been dismantled by Tuberville, and how Leach would have this team at 5-0 after only 4 games. Let’s look at this a little more in-depth.

First, the Tech offense has scored 139 points this year. At this point last year, the Tech offense had scored 145 points. That is an average of 1.5 points less this year than last (with a horrible O-line might I add). So, for all of you who are emotionally tied to the Air Raid offense and are crying in you beer arguing that Tubs has killed it, look at the numbers. The points are still there. No, there might not be as many screens and 5 five sets, but point-wise, Tech is still scoring.

Second, what has changed is we have given up 8.5 more points a game this year than last. That is unfortunate, but hopefully this can be related to the fact that we changed our defensive scheme over the offseason. There is no way to predict the future, but we don’t need to throw away the new D after four games. We have never been known as a great defensive team. Let’s look at some Leach-era losses for comparison so that all you Leachers out there can get a dose of reality.

2009

29-28 loss @ Houston. Everyone remembers the QB sneak that didn’t work. Everyone also remembers the fact that everyone in the state of Texas knew it was coming despite the fact that it hadn’t worked up to that point.

52-30 loss to A&M AT TECH! This was a painful loss; maybe one of the most painful in recent memory.

2008

65-21 loss @ OU. And that game wasn’t even that close! Oh, and we were ranked #2 at the time.

47-34 loss to Ole Miss @ the Cotton Bowl.

2007

49-45 loss @ OSU. Remember when Tech had a chance to win in the last seconds and a pass in the end zone when off of some guy’s shoulder pads on 4^th down? I think his name was Crabtree.

We also lost @ Mizzou against CU @home and @ UT this year. Only one of those games was within less than 16 points.

Now, this is only going back three years—probably 3 of the better years of the Leach era. Only twice in the Leach era did Tech lose LESS THAN 3 conference games. EIGHT times in TEN years under Leach, Tech lost AT LEAST 3 conference games and FIVE of those years, Tech lost AT LEAST 4 conference games.

In other words, let’s put this season into perspective. It hasn’t been great, or even as good as expected. What is has been is Tech football. We had one outstanding year (and didn’t even get to the conference championship, might I add), so let’s stop acting like Tech football has suddenly fallen from grace. Tuberville has not taken your precious child and kicked it to the curb. He is not trying to kill a good thing. He is trying to take a historically slightly-better-than-average team and make it better. Let’s remove the emotional nonsense and look at the fact that we are what we always have been. We’re good enough to beat anyone, but inconsistent enough to lose to anyone. (Let’s also realize that as a whole, the Big 12 sucks this year. OU is the best team in the South and they could easily be 1-3.)

Hopefully, with Tuberville and time, we will be a more rounded team capable of beating anyone, but not losing unexpectedly. Of course, that would require patience on the part of the fan base to give him the time needed to recruit and build a program (not just an offense).