To the powers that be:
Today's scheduling news re: A&M basketball prompts me to propose what I think will be a great idea for not only Texas Tech but Texas college sports in general. With realignment, the loss of traditional rivalries is the cost for chasing the bigger, better TV deal.
What if there was a way to preserve these rivalries without forcing a 30 year commitment to play, or whatever else has been tossed out? Losing UT to the SEC sucks, but I don't necessarily want us to be locked into a 30 year OOC agreement with them.
Lo and behold, my proposal: The Southwest Showdown. This is an OOC showcase kind of like the Conference basketball events exclusively for the former SWC teams in the SEC and Big 12, so UT, A&M, Arky, Tech, Baylor, TCU and UH.
Designate a weekend in September for the televised event featuring 3 matchups, the 3 SEC teams vs 3 Big 12 teams with one of the Big 12 teams rotating out every year. One Big 12 home game, one SEC home game, and one neutral site (Jerryworld) game. Rotate the matchups every year, giving every team a chance to regularly see their old rivals.
This would allow the teams to cleanly go their own way in regards to conference play while also retaining the old rivalries without locking themselves into some kind of exclusive scheduling deal with one team. The seven schools would negotiate the TV rights together boosting revenue. And it would be a boost to recruiting, even for the SEC schools, imo.
Realignment has opened up Texas recruiting to bigly, and a scheduling agreement like this would go a long way toward keeping not only the top talent in state but also that secondary tier of talent that has been prone to looking elsewhere as UT and A&M have tried to recruit more nationally (to their detriment, imo).
I toss this idea out there in the hopes that someone with decision making ability reads this and can connect to their counterparts at the other schools to get the ball rolling on making something like this happen.
Today's scheduling news re: A&M basketball prompts me to propose what I think will be a great idea for not only Texas Tech but Texas college sports in general. With realignment, the loss of traditional rivalries is the cost for chasing the bigger, better TV deal.
What if there was a way to preserve these rivalries without forcing a 30 year commitment to play, or whatever else has been tossed out? Losing UT to the SEC sucks, but I don't necessarily want us to be locked into a 30 year OOC agreement with them.
Lo and behold, my proposal: The Southwest Showdown. This is an OOC showcase kind of like the Conference basketball events exclusively for the former SWC teams in the SEC and Big 12, so UT, A&M, Arky, Tech, Baylor, TCU and UH.
Designate a weekend in September for the televised event featuring 3 matchups, the 3 SEC teams vs 3 Big 12 teams with one of the Big 12 teams rotating out every year. One Big 12 home game, one SEC home game, and one neutral site (Jerryworld) game. Rotate the matchups every year, giving every team a chance to regularly see their old rivals.
This would allow the teams to cleanly go their own way in regards to conference play while also retaining the old rivalries without locking themselves into some kind of exclusive scheduling deal with one team. The seven schools would negotiate the TV rights together boosting revenue. And it would be a boost to recruiting, even for the SEC schools, imo.
Realignment has opened up Texas recruiting to bigly, and a scheduling agreement like this would go a long way toward keeping not only the top talent in state but also that secondary tier of talent that has been prone to looking elsewhere as UT and A&M have tried to recruit more nationally (to their detriment, imo).
I toss this idea out there in the hopes that someone with decision making ability reads this and can connect to their counterparts at the other schools to get the ball rolling on making something like this happen.
