Wait so ESPN puts out their Future Power Rankings through 2027 and we are sitting there somewhere in the middle of the Big 12 pack while programs like Oklahoma State are out here bringing in 50 transfer players under a brand new coaching staff. I remember when we joined this league back in 2012 after the Southwest Conference fell apart and the old Big East days. We eaned our spot the hard way, not by buying a whole new roster off the shelf like you are shopping at the grocery store. Coach Patterson built this program with high school kids from Texas who wanted to be Horned Frogs, not mercenaries chasing the biggest NIL check.
Now you have got North Carolina coming to Fort Worth for a Tuesday night game this fall and I am supposed to get excited about that? Back in the 1990s we had rivalries with schools you could drive to. Baylor, SMU, Texas Tech, Rice. You knew the kids on the other side of the ball because you played against them in high school. Now we are scheduling ACC teams for random weeknight games because the conference realignment monsters destroyed every geographic rivalry we ever had. The 2014 Peach Bowl season feels like a lifetime ago when we actually played in a league that made sense.
I miss the days when you could look at a schedule and know every single team on it meant something. These power rankings and future projections mean nothing when the sport has lost its soul. We used to be a program that developed players over four years and sent them to the NFL. Now we are just another school trying to keep our head above water in this transfer portal ocean. The old Amon G. Carter Stadium magic is still there but the game itself does not feel like ours anymore.