Tech & Tommy vs. the Tide?

Myers: Tech-Alabama in talks for 2012 opener
By Alex Ybarra/Daily Toreador

With a new defense and a newfound sense of professionalism, Texas Tech coach Tommy Tuberville undoubtedly has shaken up the football program.

Now he’s getting his hands on the scheduling aspect of it.

Tech Athletic Director Gerald Myers confirmed Tuesday that a season-opener against reigning national champion Alabama in 2012 is in the “talking stages.”

Myers said Dave Brown, a vice president of programming for ESPN, talked to Myers and Tuberville two weeks ago to measure their interest in a game with the Crimson Tide. Both said yes, prompting Brown to ask Alabama, which eventually expressed interest as well.

A possible location would be on a neutral site, most likely Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, where Tech played Baylor in front of 72,000 spectators last season.

“Coach Tuberville was supportive of the idea of playing a team like Alabama,” Myers said. “He thinks it would be attractive to recruits, having an opportunity to play an opponent like Alabama on national television. He’s looking at it from a recruiting standpoint as well.”

The last time Tech played a non-Big 12 Conference BCS team during the regular season was in 2003 when it faced North Carolina State and Mississippi.

Myers said a few reasons Tech did not play so many BCS schools recently were former coach Mike Leach’s philosophy on scheduling and the NCAA relaxing the rules when it comes to playing FCS teams.

“Some of it was the fact that some schools would not play us home and home. They’d always want us to go to their stadium,” Myers said. “We didn’t want to do that anymore. I got a call about Michigan a couple years ago. But they just wanted the game one way. We’ll play Michigan if they’ll play us home-at-home.”

Myers said Leach thought playing in the Big 12 was tough enough and playing top-tier opponents from BCS conferences wouldn’t necessarily increase an already stellar strength of schedule.

“It worked well with him, but coach Tuberville’s philosophy is a little different,” he said. “He doesn’t want to play Alabama every week but maybe one out of the four nonconference teams.”

See, this is why the decision to bring in Tommy Tubberville is already paying off. Playing a high quality non conference opponent every year is a must if you want to be taken seriously in the discussion about realistic national title contenders. I'm not saying Tech is contending for the biggest prize in 2010 but down the road it will be important.

Sure, there is some merit to the idea that ducking those games during the Mike Leach era (ala Bill Snyder at Kansas State) gave Tech a better record and better bowl appearances but I still maintain that if Tech had nutted up and played LSU at the start of the 2008 season (and won) the Raiders could have been the team that won the three way Big 12 South tiebreaker. And if they lost it wouldn't have hurt them that bad. So congrats to Coach Tuberville for starting the dialougue with Bama. I'd love to see the Raiders and Crimson Tide in 2012.