Another Texas Tech Football Tradition Will Die In 2025

I was seeing a lot of upside in the newly expanded Big 12 and that's started fading a bit.

I was a bit like everybody else when Texas and O.U. decided to bolt the Big 12, it was "Yeah, hit the road, Jack, we don't need you no more". The idea of seeing some new faces and new places does appear attractive, but we do need a little bit of normalcy and tradition.

For as long as I can remember Texas Tech has been looking for something to call an authentic rivalry and the closest we ever really came was our annual hatred for the University Of Texas. Even then, a rivalry really consists of two teams (and towns) that are super-competitive and U.T. always treated us as inferior even when we beat them.

This brings us to what was our second best chance at a "thing" with another team and that's the annual "Battle For the Saddle" with T.C.U. While it doesn't have the same weight as something like the Red River Shootout (O.U. -vs- Texas) it still was something that was at least germinating an authentic rivalry.

This year the "Battle For The Saddle" didn't even seem to be publicized until Tech hoisted it up after a win. I guess that's a good thing because this is no longer an annual tradition. A Texas Tech versus Texas Christian matchup will not happen at all in 2025 due to the Big 12 scheduling matrix.

This matchup being overlooked smarts a bit because four other rivalries in the league were preserved, including T.C.U. and Baylor. In fact, it looks like there is no team that Texas Tech will play four times over the first four years of the Big 12 (the scheduling matrix will make your brain spin if you look at it for too long).

So are football "rivalries" really a thing anymore, or is it just the win-loss column that matters? I would think anything that would engage the fans helps sell tickets to the home games is worthwhile. It's a shame that the Texas Tech -vs- T.C.U. matchup wasn't considered strong enough to preserve.