Texas Tech v. Texas Christian

There's an old saying about the Unofficial College Football Championship:  once the winds of fall start to blow, it's hard to hold the Big Gold Trophy.  Usually the team holding the trophy opens with a few cupcake games -- often at home -- and so the Trophy isn't in that much danger.  But as the weather starts to cool down, and conference play starts, you usually start to see the trophy move around.

Now let's look at Texas Christian.  The Horned Frogs won the Big Gold Trophy on November 1, 2014, with a stirring 31-30 win at West Virginia.  Since then, they have defended their title eight different times (home teams listed first):

11/08/14:  Texas Christian 41 - 20 Kansas St.
11/15/14:  Kansas 30 - 34 Texas Christian
11/27/14:  Texas 10 - 48 Texas Christian
12/06/14:  Texas Christian 55 - 3 Iowa St.
12/31/14:  Texas Christian 42 - 3 Mississippi (Atlanta) (Peach Bowl)
09/03/15:  Minnesota 17 - 23 Texas Christian
09/12/15:  Texas Christian 70 - 7 Stephen F. Austin
09/19/15:  Texas Christian 56 - 37 Southern Methodist

This is a very impressive run, and certainly helps to explain why Texas Christian is currently rated Number 3 in the Associated Press Poll.  But you will notice that only three of these games were on the road, and those games involved a hapless Kansas team, a fading Texas team, and a second-tier Minnesota team.  Even so, Texas Christian didn't look all that impressive against Kansas and Minnesota.  Holding the trophy is much harder on the road.

But now the pre-season is over, and the rest of Texas Christian's schedule involves games against the other nine teams in the Big XII.  Here is the gamut the Horned Frogs must face (home games in ALL CAPS):

09/26/15:  at Texas Tech
10/03/15:  TEXAS
10/10/15:  at Kansas St.
10/17/15:  at Iowa St.
10/29/15:  W. VIRGINIA
11/07/15:  at Oklahoma St.
11/14/15:  KANSAS
11/21/15:  at (15) Oklahoma
11/27/15:  (5) BAYLOR

Now on paper, that schedule doesn't look too bad -- it would seem as though the Frogs should be able to keep the Trophy at least until they have to go up to Norman, Okla. in late November.  However, I have become quite familiar with the Big XII in recent years, and I've learned that you can never tell about road games in this conference.  If a favorite on the road can get its pretty patterns going, and start putting up points in bunches, then road games aren't too bad in the Big XII.  But on the other hand, if things start to go wrong, you can lose pretty quickly -- and quite badly.

So I would not overlook today's game with Texas Tech.  Last week we talked about how the folks on Fort Worth consider themselves to be true Westerners compared to their effete neighbors in Dallas.  Well, to get to Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Tex., you have to leave Texas Christian and drive another 314 miles further west.  By the time you get to Lubbock, you are almost to New Mexico.  It's a tough place with tough people -- they'll fight with everyone, including themselves.  (If you want to hear an angry song, check out "Lubbock or Leave It," by Lubbock native Natalie Maines -- which was her reaction to critics in her home town.)

Now last year, the Texas Tech Red Raiders had a rough season -- they went 2-7 in the Big XII and they lost 82(!) -27 to the Horned Frogs.  But this year, the Red Raiders look much better.  They are 3-0 and only last week, they went to Arkansas and pasted the Razorbacks 35-24.  Texas Tech plays Oklahoma and Texas on the road this season, but they are opening conference play with back-to-back home games against Number-3 Texas Christian and Number-5 Baylor.  These two games represent Texas Tech's best chance to make a national name for itself, and I expect the Red Raiders to go all out today.

The oddsmakers also think we're going to get a pretty good game.  They have made Texas Christian a 5 1/2 point favorite in a game where the over/under is -- wait for it -- 85 points.  That would work out to something like a 45-40 win for the Horned Frogs.  That sort of score would not surprise me at all.