thoughts on the cotton bowl

After watching the Cotton Bowl, hopefully it became apparent to everyone else what I’ve known all year. Texas Tech is a much over-rated team. Tech was controlled on both sides of the ball by Alabama and though the game was decided by a late field goal, you wouldn’t have thought so by watching the game. Tech fans have been whining that the ‘Bama TD on the second play of the game should have been reviewed as the receiver’s knee was close to being on the ground as he caught a quick screen pass. Some have even inferred that Fox Sports is partially to blame for not showing replays soon enough. Say what? Fox is to blame for a possible missed call? This is a call that most likely would be difficult to overturn to begin with. What are people smoking these days?!?

It's not Fox Sports’ job to officiate the game. The booth should have access to all available replays even when TV isn't showing them to the audience (if not, it's pretty useless to begin with) so any blame there may be lies strictly with the officiating crew. And that's only if you could 'conclusively' say that the knee was for sure down. And I'll add that's a ridiculous rule to begin with in college football that should be changed.

But can we stop whining about whether the Alabama receiver's knee touched the ground or not. This is Texas Tech with ‘innovative’ Mike Leach running the show. This is the offense that was featured on the cover of the NY Times Magazine. Could they not get more than one touchdown by the end of the game? This is the offense that brags about hanging 75 or 80 points on inferior opponents. Can the great Tech offense not generate more than seven points?

It simply shows that the spread offense is a wonderful gimmick scheme that lets teams like Tech, Northwestern and now Vanderbilt that don't have the talent base of the top football powers compete against many teams. But when they play teams that are physically superior they struggle. No shame in that, but that's the reality. Tech has maybe the best 5-yard passing offense in the nation... and that's about it!