Texas Tech’s Spring Game Score Actually Mattered This Year

The Texas Tech Spring Game has generally been a useless exercise for all involved. Sure, fans have historically gotten a small chance to see some plays, but the overall game has been a display of futile formations for the better part of a decade.

When I was a kid during the Spike Dykes Era I remember going on the field to get autographs. In the Leach Era, I was mostly worried about the equipment sale. When Kingsbury took over he was more worried about spring games in Midland and Frisco. Then Matt Wells continued the dumb tradition of making it offense vs defense with a wild scoring system.

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Quite frankly, the spring games in Lubbock have always been useless.

Until now.

If you tuned in to the Texas Tech Spring game last weekend you watched Team Matadors and Team Red Raiders do battle in a "traditional" game setting. Sure the clock was running, there were no kickoffs and the quarterbacks were rotating through, but the game had an actual winning side and a losing side with touchdowns and field goals making the difference.

The team that held the number one defense, Team Matadors, won the game by forcing turnovers and creating space on route to a 24-6 victory. Rayshad Williams started the scoring with a pick-six and The Matadors never looked back.

For their efforts, the winning team was treated to Prime Rib from Red Raider Meats while the losing team dined on hot dogs according to defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter.

Now, those "hot dogs" look a lot like the incredible sausage from Red Raider meats, so nobody went home hungry, but there's something to be said about instilling a culture that winning is important.

Sure, it's just meat after a game, but this is something that Nick Saban does at Alabama and has done for years. The winning team of their spring scrimmage gets steak and cake, the losers get a bowl of beans. Is that why Alabama wins National Championships? It's not the only reason, but it speaks to the lengths that Nick Saban goes to in order to create a culture where winning is important.

Winning hasn't been important enough apparently for Texas Tech football in the last decade. If it was, they wouldn't have a losing record. Maybe Joey McGuire is finally laying the groundwork that winning gets you prime rib in Lubbock, and the National Champion Meat Judging dynasty has plenty of it to go around.