When recently talking to a friend who grew up in New York and has lived in Texas for less than a decade, the subject of Texas Tech football came up. My friend, a huge sports fan with no affiliation to any school west of the Mississippi, looked at me and said, “Man, what the hell happened to you guys? It doesn’t seem like that long ago when you were the hottest program in the country.” Since then, I’ve been wrestling with that very question.
Ten years ago, Barack Obama was in his first year in the Oval Office, Michael Jackson was in the final weeks of his life, the iPhone 3GS became the first phone capable of recording video and Texas Tech football fans were reveling in the afterglow of the most successful season in program history while looking forward to the future like never before.