There Will Be No Asterisk On Texas Tech’s Season

What does this year’s football season, and the Golden State Warrior’s 2015 season potentially have in common? At the end of the day, there will be no asterisk next to the word “Champions”.

When Golden State won the NBA Title in 2015 against the Cleveland Cavaliers, was there a side bar in the sports page that said “The opponent had a lot of injuries”? No, it didn’t. All it said was “NBA Champions”. How does that relate to this year’s football season? If Texas Tech can execute, or just simply survive week in and week out, the door for wining the conference is about as wide open as we could have asked for.

All of the Texas Tech haters would say “The only way y’all were able to win is because everyone else lost”, I can hear it now. My response to that would be, so what? We still won. If we end up lifting the conference trophy this year, the plaque won’t say “Winner of a lousy Big 12” it will simply say Big 12 Champions.

On the other hand, if we end up not winning the conference, there won’t be an asterisk that says “You couldn’t even win a lousy Big 12”, it will just show our record, and where we stand with the rest of the teams. So it works both ways.

Honestly, people who use the argument “Y’all were only able to win because the Big 12 is lousy this year” says more about them than it says about us. If someone bashes on you for winning a conference, that’s like someone telling you that you suck after you just beat them. If we are so bad, then why weren’t you able to beat us? Argument over.

The only reason why I bring this up is because it could very well happen, Tech is still going to have to win some big games down the stretch, but I can’t help but be optimistic. I don’t care if 8-4 is enough to win the conference, because that’s still winning the conference. I don’t think the record of the victor diminishes anything. It’s the same thing as winning by 1 or winning by 30. Yes, we would all love to win every game by 30, even thought it might get a bit boring, but the point is, winning by 30 is the same thing as winning by 1. There is always the argument for having some style points, but at the end of the day, a win is a win. Tech could win the conference by 4 games, or they could win it by one of those funky tie breakers, but at the end of the day, winning is still winning. No matter how pretty it is. Take Tennessee for example, they are 5-0 because of some lucky breaks, they should be 3-2, but yet they are still undefeated.

So really, I don’t care what people think about a less than powerful Big 12 this year. If we end up winning the conference it will still go into the record books. 5 years from now people won’t remember how sorry the Big 12 was, they will just remember who won it. In reality, no matter how much of a down year this may be, in order to accomplish a conference title you still have to win big games on the road and at home, and I don’t think anything can diminish that fact.

Maybe I have my sights set too high, but this has the potential to become a pretty wacky season. With teams loosing games they weren’t expected to lose, and others playing better than we thought they would, there is still a lot that can change in the next 8 games. I can’t take my eyes off of the Big 12 crown, because in my eyes, it is right there for the taking, and we are currently next in line.