Perspective Piece: Texas Tech-Oklahoma

Texas Tech has already refuted its doubters and silenced its critics, no matter what happens the rest of this college football season. Saturday night in Norman, the Red Raiders can similarly shut up the nattering nabobs of negativism who are just waiting for the Bowl Championship Series to implode in a newly spectacular manner.

In one of the more fascinating college football scenarios ever encountered, two of the heavies in the Big 12 South will stage a battle that--if won by homestanding Oklahoma--will send the BCS into chaos and turn college football pundits into Olympic figure skating judges. But what's gotten lost in the shuffle, as Mike Leach gets ready for the latest edition of "biggest game in Texas Tech history," is that if Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree bring their pyro-Tech-nics to the ballpark and conquer one more formidable foe, this BCS mess will evaporate in a heartbeat. We might have just finished a draining and long presidential race, but when the Red Raiders and Sooners wage war in the November night, football observers will find out if this college football campaign will be as political as Obama-McCain. If OU wins, it's recount city and endless lawyering; but if Tech triumphs once more, the concessions will pour in and clarity will emerge. It's not the way football was meant to be played, but it's the reality that towers over this titanic tilt like nothing seen in the 11-season BCS era.

Let this be shouted from the rooftops, loud and long: The college football world, in an ideal situation, would have used the final days before this showdown to praise the amazing ascendancy of the Red Raiders and the resilience of the Sooners.

In a pigskin utopia, we'd be emphasizing how far Tech has come under Leach, the onetime assistant to Bob Stoops who now seeks to beat his former boss on the road to division and conference crowns and a shot at the national title. In a gridiron paradise, we'd be noting how writers (such as this one) thought Texas Tech was a tease in the offseason, and that the Kansases and Texases of the world would be too much for the chuck-and-duck Raiders, who could put on a show and pile up points, but would flinch when the going got tough. That hasn't happened this year, as an all-world offensive line has remained almost entirely impregnable for Tech's first ten games. A win over Oklahoma would leave only Baylor and Missouri standing in the way of a perfect regular season and a date with destiny in Miami on January 8.

In a land of peace and justice, the college football cognoscenti--in addition to lauding Leach's lads--would also be noting how the Sooners, after the devastating loss to Texas, picked themselves up and--without the services of their defensive heartbeat, linebacker Ryan Reynolds--rolled through the rest of their schedule to stay in the thick of the division chase. An authoritative rout against the Red Raiders just might vault the Crimson and Cream to yet another division crown, their seventh this decade. Texas Tech and Oklahoma have done awesome things, but because of the Big 12's poor tiebreaking procedure for three-team traffic jams (point differential should be the new fifth tiebreaker when 2009 rolls around), the only thing anyone can talk about--and unavoidably so--is the set of BCS rankings that lurk in the background.

If Texas Tech wins, we won't be talking about such matters come Sunday morning. Ah, but what if the Sooners win? After all, Stoops has lost exactly two home games in his storied OU career, and one of those losses was an opening day disaster in the first game of the post-Jason White era (the 2005 opener against TCU). The only time Oklahoma has lost a meaningful late-season home game in the Stoops era came seven long years ago, when Les Miles and Oklahoma State stunned Bob's boys in the 2001 edition of the Bedlam Series. It's understandable why people are prattling on about the BCS, the microchips, the circuits, and the coaches' votes that are all part of a very political equation: Oklahoma doesn't generally lose at home to anyone in the Big 12. Texas Tech might have had a bye week to deal with OU, but the Sooners also had Nov. 15 off so they could spend 14 days to surgically study the pitch-and-catch powerhouse heading into town.

And so, while this contest figures to be spectacularly good on the merits thanks to the presence of three Heisman Trophy contenders (Harrell, Crabtree, and OU quarterback Sam Bradford), and amazingly exciting due to the point-producing potency of the two offenses involved, a big part of the drama enveloping this contest will float to off-field considerations, and to the people who so poorly govern a sport with virtually no central seat of authority.

Indeed, just how will all of college football's power brokers react to this game? It might seem unfair to the Red Raiders and Sooners to deny them their moment in the spotlight, but then ask yourself: How fair is the BCS system that looms over this game like a black shadow? How can a complete perspective attached to this game not include the faces and figures who, all their public proclamations to the contrary, will see their system exposed to the -Nth degree if the Sooners prevail? How will the conference commissioners and university presidents react as this game unfolds? How will they internally rationalize where they stand? How will their blood pressure levels and heart rates vary (if at all)? How will they rethink the future--if ever--during the night's action? How will the Harris Poll voters and computer geeks react when they see their influence grow exponentially larger, forcing them to possibly decide the fate of three Big 12 South programs who all deserve a shot at greatness, but who simply can't play Missouri together on Dec. 6?

Yes, there will be plenty of drama on the field when Texas Tech and Oklahoma go at it. Unfortunately yet undeniably, there will be even more intrigue off the gridiron, as a college football season will become even more political unless Mike Leach's men can rise to meet yet another man-making motivational moment in Soonerland.