Centex' s review of the Sporting magazines run down of the Red Raiders chances

Has always done a better, unbiased, job covering the Big 12 than any of the in state news papers.

When it comes to college football offseason reviews, bloggers/sbnation types are going to be the most informed on the teams. I mean writers from large newspapers and tv conglomerates get what is fed to them, though they really don’t know much past that at this point. I mean nobody from the Dallas Morning News or the Houston Chronicle were at the Red/Black game or at practices… how would they know what the offense is shaping up to be? Or how TT is coaching these kids up?

The truth about grading Texas Tech football at this point is that you simply can’t. Tech will continue to fly under the radar and everyone in the media will use the coaching change is an excuse to say Tech won’t amount to much, and when we do end up surprising people it will be to the surprise of the nation and a great cover story… meanwhile back on the Double T Nation front we will see what we already know… that we match up well in almost all positions, and that our skill players are greatly under-rated.

Normally I find the pre-season hype fun, but these days too many people take the easy aspect of ‘oh they lost their coach they are going to suck now’, there hasn’t been one columnist I have seen in the mass media that has even put forth the slightest bit of effort towards TTU this year.

But that is how we like it right?

I mean we did make a name for ourselves as the underdog right?

Might as well live it up, cause there are going to be allot of people with egg on their face when this season starts to take shape. (especially those behind the Baylor/A&M hype machines)

I have with the sports writers are that they never really do much research beyond what the mainstream media is saying. I understand that the blogs are going to be bias towards the teams they support but at least you get current information about the ongoings of teams you follow. These magazines all say the same thing and have been doing so since TT arrived in Lubbock. The only thing that will change that will be what happens in the fall. For now, the magazines and newspapers are just wasteland of repeated nonsense.

They offer up a verdict for 2010: Raiders go 8-4. Postseason : Holdiay Bowl “if everything comes together Texas Tech could finish third in the Big 12.”

Beginning in 2010, the Alamo Bowl gets the 3rd place team from the Big 12 and the 2nd place team from the Pac 10. Holiday Bowl drops way down in class. You would think a sporting magazine (Athlon) would get that right…

Those Alamo Bowl officials are probably in the small camp that is glad the Big 12-Pac 10 merger fell apart.

There is an interesting dicotmy in College Football. There is this mass media / gen pop level of “news” that runs parallel with the general fandom that exists and then there is the rest of us the rabid fans! Amongst the rabid fan base there are two types of fans, one being the I love my school and dont care about any others and second the fan that loves their school and knows eveything about their school but also loves the sport and their schools place within the greater sport.

The scarry thing is that as time goes on the $$$$$ projected by making the gen pop fan base grow (ala NFL) puts pressure on the real fans!

Whether these guys are right or wrong, or devote enough time or not…I am just glad these publications are out so we can get our fix. Fall practice starts in about two weeks. Doesn’t it seem like the end of last year was forever ago? With so many other distractions this off-season, it’s nice to see us talking about football in a general sense versus the junk that was associated with football in the spring.

Do the national writers ever get it right? Not usually. But I guess I know that going in and don’t sweat their lack of detail too much. Really, to do justice to 120 teams is fairly difficult, so they give a best guess based on the major factors…new coach, new defense, strange/erratic performances last year. Hard to blame them too much, but this is a new year. And once again, we get to prove people wrong. History clearly shows that Tech, for whatever reason, plays better as an overlooked team than they do as a front-runner. Fine by me…

trying to figure out all of the ends-and-outs for just the teams on TTU’s schedule. Despite the fact that most seem to think that I do a decent job of previewing teams on DTN, I get lambasted on message boards where I’m called an idiot for not knowing the 4-deep for Team X and that the up-and-coming Player Y will easily replace departing Player Z. I was talking to my brother-in-law about this and he said why do I do it, and for me, it’s about trying to be knowledgeable about an opponent.

Obviously, I can’t know everything about every other team, but opposing fans expect that. Over the weekend, I had a Colorado reader email me and correct my Buff’s preview. He was definitely the exception to the rule, but he understood that sometimes we get things wrong.

I fully admit, that for the most part, it’s these guys’ jobs to know these teams while it’s just a hobby for me personally.

Maybe it’s because I have a passion for my team that’s the difference?

I think you do awesome work…frankly, I’m not all that interested in our opponents beyond wanting to kick their teeth in and then poke the empty sockets with a nail.

no matter how good a job I think I do, opposing fans will think that I’m being biased, insulting their program and how could I not know that they’ve recruited 3 4-star lineman over the past two years. As much as you guys and gals appreciate the work I do, opposing fans think I’m a hack, I’m just a dumb blogger, etc. It’s just the way it is.