the tindog coffeehouse

“If you woke up the morning and felt differently,” tweeted ESPN, “that’s because college football is back.”

That’s right kids. The long drought is finally over. Basketball season? Ancient history. The Olympics? A distant memory. Baseball? A mere distraction. This, ladies and gentlemen, is all that matters every Saturday from now through January 7th. May the odds be ever in your favor.

So where do we stand on opening day of the 2012 college football season? Well, for one, the BCS is officially on deathwatch, with its demise expected in 2014. And then there’s the whole Penn State thing (whose punishment wasn’t nearly severe enough, in my opinion). And Ohio State is also banned from a bowl game this year. And finally there’ve been a few conference changes. (Yes, of course I’m talking about the University of North Texas joining Conference USA.)

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It’s a sad day for the sport of collegiate chess in the state of Texas. It seems that Texas Tech chess coach Susan Polgar is leaving Lubbock to coach chess at Webster University in St. Louis. I know, I know. It’s a shock to me, too. But that’s the chess world for you.

Now, I like to pride myself on my in-depth knowledge of the game of chess, but I have to admit that there were some things that even I learned reading this story. For example, that there is such thing as collegiate chess. And that Texas Tech (Texas frickin’ Tech!) is the national champion of it. And that high school recruits can earn chess scholarships just like other athletes can. (Note to self: Start teaching my kids chess immediately!)

A few other things I learned:

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Next week will be the 118th time the University of Texas will play Texas A&M in football. And it looks like it’ll also be the last, at least for the foreseeable future. As of July 1, 2012, A&M will be part of the SEC, and the historic intrastate rivalry between the Longhorns and Aggies will officially come to an end. Of course, it’s not the first rivalry to be torn asunder by the seismic shifts of conference realignment over the past couple of years, but it’s arguably one of the best and certainly one of the most personal for anyone who grew up in the state of Texas. Whether you went to Texas or A&M or not, whether you even knew anyone who went to Texas or A&M, you were a fan of one or the other. Even if you bled Red Raider red, you came down on one side of the fence or the other. There was no escaping it.

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I grew up in Lubbock, Texas, home of Buddy Holly, cotton, and endless miles of flat dirt. Which means I also grew up as a Texas Tech fan. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of going to the Tech games with my grandparents. My Papa would always wear his red and black cowboy boots, and I’d cross my fingers and hope the Saddle Tramps would throw a little red football my way. Then when it got cold, we’d huddle under a blanket and drink hot chocolate out of a Thermos and ooh and ahh over the Goin’ Band from Raiderland. On a field trip once, we got to run out onto the field at Jones Stadium, and it was like a dream come true.

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How many teams does the Big 12 Conference have to lose before it stops being the Big “12″? And when exactly is it no longer considered “Big”? We may find out pretty soon now that Texas A&M has officially declared they’re packing up their marbles and leaving the Big 12 for a shot at the bottom of the SEC.

The Aggies apparently weren’t too keen on their intrastate rival Longhorns getting their own television network, despite the fact that the Longhorn Network will be available to exactly seven households in America, none of which are in Austin. But logic has never been A&M’s strong suit, so they’ve chosen to abandon 100+ years of tradition and possibly as much as $30 million in exit fees in hopes that the SEC will let them in to their exclusive club. Yeah, good luck with that. Let’s see, how many Big 12 football titles has A&M won? How many BCS games have they gone to? How many National Championships have they won since the rise of the BCS? Zero. And yet they really expect to do better against the likes of Auburn, Florida, Alabama, and LSU?

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The last four months have just been weird. Ever since I broke my leg in July, things have been off-kilter. Including this blog, I guess. I haven’t been as regular with my blog posts as I’d like to be, but I’m totally fine with that. I don’t need to post something every day or even every week. If you’re really that concerned about my day-to-day happenings, you can follow me on Twitter. Or marry me. Except I’m already married, so that’s probably not an option for most people.

Anyway, I didn’t really have anything in particular to blog about, so I thought I’d throw a bunch of random things into one big post and let you pick out the stuff you’re mildly interested in.

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