Big XII Farewell #3: Texas Tech

Saturday will mark the final Big XII meeting between CU and Texas Tech. These teams do not have a long and storied relationship. CU leads the all-time series 5-4 with a 4-0 mark in Boulder. Guess where this week's game will be played?

Texas Tech - you will be missed.

Tech is like that red-neck cousin of yours.

No, not the irritating, mouth-breathing, illiterate, fanatical, raving lunatic red-neck cousin - that would be Nebraska.

Rather, Tech is the colorful, fun red-neck cousin. Tech is the cousin you only see every couple of years but when you do, hoo-boy! He keeps you laughing, tells off-color jokes, gets you drunk, teaches you how to shoot beer bottles off fence posts while driving a pickup, builds bon-fires , burns your garage down ("sorry cuz"), gets you to hop a freight train, somehow winding up in Honduras, getting elected mayor of a small pueblo, starting a weapons smuggling cartel, becoming employed by the CIA, making $1 million dollars in a particularly shady transaction with some guy named Vlad, flying to Vegas, losing the million, hitching back home just as you are sobering up. All in a weekend.

We love you, Tech. But we're getting a little old for this shit. We'll be hanging with a better class of people from now on but, damn, we had some good times together. OK, OK one more weekend fling, but it's the last one!

Of course, my memories of Tech will always revolved around the indomitable Cap'n Mike Leach. The kooky pirate of college football turned Texas Tech into an entertaining and fearsome football program. On top of that Leach did the impossible, made Lubbock interesting. Why here he is now doing the local weather.

If you can't make time to watch the whole thing, at least fast forward to the 2:30 mark. Two words - raining mud. You're welcome.

But alas, Cap'n Mike befell the fate of misunderstood genius and was last year relieved of duty. Happy sailing to you, good sir. We'll always have Honduras...

So the new sheriff in Lubbock these days is Tommy Tuberville, he the former Auburn boss and possessor of giant ears.

While the Tuberville offense is humming along suitably, if comparatively un-Leach-like, the defense has really turned into a pile of flaming poo. Those guys cannot tackle anybody. Such bodes well for Tyler Hanson and his band of fiesty yet disaffected brethren. Tommy has the cure for what ails you, boys, and it's called "horizontal defense", Tech style.

Buffs win the final match with the fun cousin. 42-21.

Farewell, Red Raiders. We wish you well. When the Big XII disintegrates in two years - which it inevitably will - we hope you find a good home. You'd genuinely love it in the Mountain West I suspect.

Adios, amigo.