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Posted by on Sep 3, 2018 in Blog, Rants and Raves | 0 comments

Texas Football Sucks

 

 

Hey, Texas.  We gotta’ talk.  Umm, how come so many of your football teams suck?

 

Gee, I thought Texas was supposed to be the football capital of the universe, where only two sports were known to exist — football and Spring football.

No doubt, Texas produces lots of great football players.  There are 31 Texans inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  The starting quarterback for the defending Super Bowl champions, Nick Foles who plays for the Eagles, is from Texas.  So is Saints’ superstar Drew Brees, who by the time his career ends may hold every single passing record in the game.  Oh, and by the way, Foles and Brees both attended the same Texas high school.

Two pro football teams are known to play in Texas.  They are the Houston Texans and Texas A&M Aggies.  You heard right.  The Dallas Cowboys would count as a pro team.  But no one connected with that sorry-ass organization has earned a paycheck since Jimmy Johnson blew town a quarter-century ago.  So, Texas A&M gets the nod as the second pro squad, since Aggieland coughed up enough the taxpayer’s money to fork over $75 million bucks to a new head coach with the name “Jimbo.”  What’s the guy’s name who signed off on that deal — “Dumbo?”

Hey, run those numbers by me again:  $75 million for a college football coach?  On second thought, maybe that figure isn’t so crazy after all.  That’s about what you’d have to pay me to live in College Station, Texas.  Roll on Jimbo!  I hope you’re not a fan of decent sushi.

Texas does field two teams in the NFL.  They play in Dallas and Houston.  I don’t want to bust anyone’s early plans for a victory parade, but swallow this factual side dish with your slab of barbecue:  Over the past 20 seasons, the Jacksonville Jaguars have won as many playoff games (5) as both the Cowboys and Texans — combined.

That’s right, the fucking Jacksonville Jaguars.

Sick yet, Texas?  There should be riots.  Jerry Jones’ should be chauffeured in an armored car.  Not that Jones isn’t reviled everywhere he goes, already.  If Jerry Jones got into a car crash and his body caught on fire, for many Cowboy fans the toughest decision would be — do we grab a pack of marshmallows or hot dogs?

The Dallas Cowboys were recently ranked by Forbes as the most valuable sports franchise in the world.  That’s damned remarkable, given the Cowboys have basically been coinflipping wins and losses for more than two decades.  The closest Dallas has been to a Super Bowl is when their locker room got pimped out to the Packers and Steelers a few years ago in a game played on their home turf.  Call it football’s version of a cuckold.  Nonetheless, despite the Cowpokes being the modicum of mediocrity, football kool-aid flows like cold draught beer down in Texas.  Every game, 95,000 true believers pack the temple to watch the local heroes struggle to reach the same season-ending record as the Detroit Lions.  At least the head coach is one helluva’ gifted clapper:

 

Don’t think for a second I’m a Jason Garrett hater.  Because I’m not.  Jason might be one heckuva’ good coach, provided he was standing on the sidelines at someplace like the University of Toledo.  But in the most prestigious job in the NFL, running the planet’s most valuable sports franchise, Garrett calling the shots for the Cowboys is like some bumbling ex-New York real estate developer trying to get Mexico to pay for a border wall.  Oh, wait — nevermind.  Border wall my ass — maybe if Texas gets lucky, some Mexican will crossover, sign with a local team, and kick a winning field goal.  Anyone with the last name Gramatica, Herrera, or Zendejas immediately goes to the front of the immigration line.

All home games sell out in Dallas, which is no surprise since it’s the 4th largest metropolitan area in the country.  Since about 7.5 million football-crazed people reside in the Dallas area, that means about 1/90th of the whole D/FW region sit in the stands on Sundays bitching about how their team snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  The other 89/90 wonder what the hell those other 95,000 people were thinking paying $325 for Cowboys’ seats.

Meanwhile, down in Houston, which is the 6th largest metro area in the country and also sell-out every seat, the Texans have legitimate excuses for failure.  They were the NFL’s last expansion franchise, 15 years ago.  Houston was supposed to play shitty football for a while as the next dynasty was slowly being built.  After a decade and a half and hundreds of drafts, trades, and signing bonuses, the Texans went 4-12 last season.  Now, that’s what I call “progress.”

As I said, losing isn’t entirely Houston’s fault.  Texans have to overcome humidity, humidity, humidity, hurricanes, and Robert C. McNair.  He’s the team owner.  The good news is — at least McNair isn’t quite as bad as the previous owner of a Houston football team.  A guy named Bud Adams once owned a team called the Houston Oilers.  The Oilers played for 37 straight seasons in Houston and didn’t reach a single Super Bowl.  So, the Texans still have some catching up to do.  The Oilers’ inglorious records remain safe, at least for now.

Come to think of it, Texas has lost more professional football teams than it currently has now.  The early Dallas Texans of the ’50s became the Baltimore Colts, then later the Indianapolis Colts.  The later Dallas Texans of the ’60s became the Kansas City Chiefs.  And the Houston Oilers became the Tennessee Titans.

College football in Texas is just as depressing.

This past wreck of a week, Texas played Maryland, which was the season opener for both teams.  Nothing against Marylanders, who seem like nice people, but this game was a total mismatch.  The prideful Longhorns were favored by two touchdowns.   That’s because Maryland’s football program was in chaos.  The head coach was on administrative leave, likely to be fired after a player died on the practice field during an excessive workout.  Maryland went 4-8 last season, tied for sixth place in the Big Ten-East.  So, what happened on Saturday?

Maryland thumped Texas 34-29, winning outright.

Texas Tech fared even worse.  The Red Raiders of Lubbock were favored by a field goal against Ole’ Miss.  Texas Tech has been an offensive powerhouse for years.  They score like 60 points a game.  Trouble is, Tech usually surrenders 70 points a game.  On Saturday, Texas Tech took their home field and lost by 20.  Nice job, guys.  Something’s gone shitty wrong when you’re losing to a team with a name that begins with “Ole.”  Okay, so the game was actually played in Houston.  But I’m still calling it a home defeat for Lubbock’s finest.

SMU, which is the rich private university based in Dallas, was once a perennial national championship contender.  Problem was, they broke just about every law in the NCAA rulebook to win — and then got caught.  SMU was given what became known as the “death penalty.”  Now, the Mustangs — who once played their home games in the Cotton Bowl and Texas Stadium — get outdrawn in attendance by the nearby high school team, Highland Park.  On Saturday. SMU lost by 23 in their first game — but at least it was to another Texas team (North Texas).  I don’t know whether that’s comforting or a disgrace.

Rice, which is a filthy rich private university based in Houston for all the smart kids, was ground zero for NASA’s space program.  It’s also the university I couldn’t get into because my grades weren’t good enough, so I had to slum it at Texas.  In the very football stadium where the fighting Owls play all their home games, President John F. Kennedy once vowed we’d go to the moon and he was right.  We did.  Credit the Owls for their huge win in their opener.  Rice barely squeaked by a Division II school, Prairie View A&M, by three points.  Look out, Alabama!

 

Baylor, which is the rich private university based in Waco, didn’t learn anything apparently from what happened to their neighbors to the north, SMU, some years earlier.  Baylor messed up badly a few years ago, getting punished with probation following a major sex scandal.  Huh?  What was that?  A sex scandal at Baylor?  That’s not a blemish.  Hell, that’s a badge of honor.  Baylor, which lost its season opener to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University last season, is coming off a 1-11 record in 2017.  But hey, at least they didn’t lose to Kansas.

TCU, which is the rich private university based in Ft. Worth, basically Dallas’ stepchild equivalent of Newark, might be the lone star of Texas football.  The Horned Frogs have been really, really good for many years now, and even field a Top 20 team.  TCU won its season opener on Saturday, crushing Southern University by seven touchdowns.  More important, they covered the point spread.  TCU is pretty amazing considering two things:  They somehow attract kids to live in Ft. Worth.  And, the student enrollment is only 8,000, which is basically the size of the average Biology 101 classroom at the University of Texas.

As for some of the other Texas football teams:  UTEP lost.  UTSA lost.  Texas State lost.

To be fair, Texas does indeed have a great football team.  They’ve won several national titles and always seem to be really good.  Too bad the name of the team is….the Oklahoma Sooners.  OU is absolutely stacked with players from Texas.  A review of 2018’s Oklahoma team roster shows a whopping 41 players from Texas who crossed over the border to play for the enemy.  Who knows?  Maybe those 41 Texans enrolled at Norman couldn’t get accepted into Rice.

Sorry, Texas football fans.  Even though I’m a proud alum, and even though I had season tickets to Dallas Cowboys games for more than a decade, our football teams suck.

READ:  More memories of Texas football

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