I have acquired cherished very little in my 54 decades on this mote of dust we call world Earth, but a single factor I have hoisted in is that predicting the potential a lot more than a pair of a long time out is a fool’s errand. The planet we live in, and in particular the culture in which we dwell, is far too elaborate to understand in just about anything like its totality. Even for any supplied phase of that society, there are merely far more variables than for which we can account. And if you cannot enumerate all of its variables, you have extremely very little opportunity of predicting how its future will evolve.


This actuality is truly great information for Texas Tech athletics, since, with the grievous damage performed to the Major XII by Oklahoma and Texas’ defection to the SEC, and the so-known as “alliance” between the PAC 12, Huge 10 and ACC, which at minimum temporarily freezes out the remaining eight users of the Massive XII, the current doesn’t search terribly rosy. So, if you’re discontented with the here and the now, your greatest wager is to area you hopes in the upcoming, and not the quick rather predictable future, but the lengthier expression.


The most very likely brief-term—say, the following three years—scenario for Texas Tech is remaining in the Huge XII. If the convention can retain its present membership, Texas and Oklahoma may sense compelled to adhere all around by means of the remainder of the current contract in purchase to steer clear of possessing to shell out a really steep exit penalty. Then the Longhorns and Sooners will vamoose and points could get extremely dicey and exciting, in fact.


Assuming one of the present electrical power conferences doesn’t invite Texas Tech right after the Massive XII’s television contract has expired—and one may extremely nicely do just that—the key objective will most likely be to bolster the Significant XII as a great deal as probable and soldier on.


That is the element that concerns a lot of Pink Raider fans. It is practically sure, just after all, that a Massive XII sans Texas and Oklahoma will not be a huge television attract, which suggests that television payouts to member faculties will fall from what they are now. And, dependent on the level of diminution, the Major XII may no for a longer period even benefit the designation “power meeting.”


This would be a stinging blow to Texas Tech’s delight as nicely as its fisc. Ever given that becoming a member of the Southwest Conference in 1956, Texas Tech has been in what could be referred to as a power meeting, even even though that designation did not exist for the duration of the SWC’s lifespan. Immediately after Arkansas still left the SWC for the SEC, the SWC faltered and the Pink Raiders entered the new Massive XII. As a result, Texas Tech has been in a premiere football conference for 66 seasons. And when you have been habituated to a little something desirable for that long, you truly feel entitled to it. Dropping from the ranks of elite soccer right after all of these a long time would be a nauseating capsule to swallow from the acrid lees of the bitterest cup.


What’s a lot more, the minimized payout from a weakened Large XII could harm Texas Tech’s potential to contend with energy convention systems and hence cement the method into next-class position for the prolonged haul. For all intents and applications, the times of premiere football for Texas Tech could be a point of the previous.


But here’s in which we return to the issue of the lengthy-phrase future’s unpredictability. And more specially, the uncertainty of a revamped Huge XII. Certainly, underneath recent ailments it is tricky to consider how a Major XII with out Texas and Oklahoma could be as potent as it was with them. And, certainly, perhaps it will not be. But who’s to say that unknowable and unforeseeable things in the upcoming may possibly not perform to the Huge XII’s favor and dramatically cushion the loss of UT and OU?


It appears probably that the meeting would increase. Perhaps it would swell to 14 groups by introducing the likes of Cincinnati, Memphis, South Florida, Central Florida, Colorado Condition and New Mexico. (If you never like a pair of all those teams, substitute two of your possess.) Obviously, none of individuals systems are “helmet schools” suitable now and won’t create the tv revenue Texas and Oklahoma do. But not all helmet faculties have been these considering that the days of Fielding Yost and Knute Rockne. Get Clemson, for occasion. The Tigers have been a superior football program since at the very least the late 70s, but right until the past 15 decades did not qualify as a helmet university. They do now.


What I’m indicating is that occasions may well transpire that permit a single or additional long term Huge XII teams—possibly even Texas Tech—to arise as a helmet school and earnings dynamo. Stranger things have absolutely took place. But my broader place is that, for causes that we are not able to even glimpse dimly appropriate now (inhabitants shifts, for instance), the new Massive XII could be considerably much better than we think about. Probably it would even recrudesce as a electric power convention when again.


So, as we rend our garments, conquer our breasts and wail our lamentations, enable us refrain from shoveling cemetery dirt on Texas Tech’s football long term. The ol’ matador may well have some surprises for us yet.
