ESPN puts out their Big 12 preview calling Texas Tech the team to beat and I just sit here thinking about how we used to build a program. Back in the 1998 Sun Bowl season we didnt have a single five-star recruit on the entire roster. We had kids from small Texas towns nobody ever heard of who showed up in June and started earning their spot in August heat. That was the old way. You found a kid with something to prove and you coached him up over three or four years until he could play with anybody in the country.
Nowadays you look at the transfer portal numbers and every program in this league is just shopping for players like they are picking out produce at the grocery store. Fifty new faces at Oklahoma State under Morris. Forty-three at Colorado. Where is the loyalty? Where is the development? I watched Gary Patterson take a two-star kid from a 3A school and turn him into an all-conference player because the kid wanted to be coached and the staff wanted to coach him. That is dying.
The NIL money is great for these kids I guess but it killed the whole idea of earning your spot. You used to have to wait your turn and when you finally got on the field you ran through a wall for the name on the front of your jersey. Now everybody is looking at the name on the back and shopping around for the best offer. I miss the days when you could rattle off the whole two-deep roster because those kids had been in the program for three years and you watched them grow up.