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Conference realignment has stolen headlines ahead of the college football season as teams make decisions to hop leagues. The PAC 12 has seen six teams announce intentions to leave after the 2023-24 season, leaving them with just four remaining members.
While it’s the West Coast league that’s currently hanging by a thread, one Reddit user has identified the true villain in realignment. Hilariously, the school has no direct tie to the Conference of Champions, but it seems that having them in your conference ends up being a death wish.
His answer? Texas Tech.
He made his case against the Red Raiders in a comical yet evidence-based rant on the social media app. Any league affiliated with the university seems to dissolve shortly thereafter.
This goes back much, much further than the current offseason, and it involves multiple casualties.
A breakdown of the interesting trend involving TTU.
Texas Tech has been in three conferences throughout their history:
Border Conference, Southwest Conference, and the Big 12. All of these conferences have died, or in the case of the Big 12, almost died.
While Texas is the lovable go to in blaming for deaths of conferences, Texas Tech has quietly moved through the shadows as it has the blood of two conferences on its hands.
The Reddit user gave a brief history of the Red Raiders’ conference affiliations, first noting Tech’s decision to leave the Border Conference just before its fall.
Texas Tech’s departure from the Border Conference in 1956 majorly destabilizes the conference, leaving Arizona and Arizona State to keep the conference alive. It barely goes on until its collapse in 1962.
He then claims TTU’s move to the Southwest Conference largely effected the recruiting landscape, essentially forcing other Texas based schools to revert to cheating.
That cheating would catch up to the SWC with SMU’s death penalty and an array of other recruiting violations.
Texas Tech’s arrival to the SWC marked the beginning of the end for the conference, as the west Texas pipeline that TCU, Baylor, and SMU relied on for recruiting purposes was swallowed up by Texas Tech. Texas Tech will end up doing next to nothing notable in the SWC despite having control of this recruiting pipeline.
The conference would continue to get weaker throughout the decades with its conference members resorting to huge amounts of cheating to stay relevant until the NCAA brought the hammer down on the vast majority of the conference in the 1980s.
Life in the Big XII, and Texas Tech’s attempts to destroy it.
The Red Raiders would soon leave the Southwest Conference alongside Baylor, Texas, and TAMU, effectively killing the league. They then joined the Big XII where less than two decades later four founding members would leave.
Texas Tech did not try killing the Big 12 not once, but twice. The first attempt to kill the Big 12 came in 2010, when Texas Tech, along with Texas, OU, and Oklahoma State were in advanced negotiations with the PAC-10 in joining as a bloc. Ultimately, Texas Tech’s inclusion was one of the deal breakers along with the Longhorn Network and thus negotiations collapsed, leaving the Big 12 to survive on adding TCU and West Virginia.
Then, an alleged second attempt to destroy the conference.
Post Nebraska, CU, A&M, and Mizzou Big 12: Texas and Oklahoma decided to go the SEC in 2021. With the Big 12 in shambles once again, Texas Tech senses the opportunity to finally kill the conference once and for all. Rumors say that Texas Tech went to the PAC, along with Oklahoma State, in order to attempt to join the PAC-12 Conference. However, the PAC, specifically USC according to the rumors, stops Texas Tech in its tracks, denying expansion.
In conclusion, CFB has been blaming the wrong school all this time, as having Texas Tech in your conference is truly the mark of death.
He may have a point given the previous ties to the Border and Southwest Conferences. The Big XII seemed near death on multiple occasions, but somehow survived.
Fans were quick to react to the original poster’s proclaimed villain.
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by u/knockoutking from discussion Texas Tech is the real villain of realignment. Here’s why.
in CFB
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by u/yer_a_blizzard_harry from discussion Texas Tech is the real villain of realignment. Here’s why.
in CFB
Now, the school is doing its damage to outside leagues.
“The only reason we didn’t kill the PAC earlier is because we didn’t get on the inside. So, we made sure to get [commissioner Brett] Yormark to kill the conference from the outside. And we’ll kill this Big XII, too, in a few years, as is tradition,” one fan responded.
“To be fair, ‘Wreck ’em!’ is our slogan,” another TTU supporter said.
For now, this is where the argument ends as the Big XII appears to be thriving following its most recent additions. Maybe the curse has been broken, or maybe the Texas Tech affiliation will come back to haunt in the coming years.