Why it's important that Kirby Hocutt keeps calling out UT

Two years ago this week, the Houston Chronicle broke the bombshell news that Texas and Oklahoma were getting ready to abandon the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference. Ever since it became apparent the departures of UT and OU were fait accompli, Kirby Hocutt and the Texas Tech brass have pushed Texas to keep playing the Red Raiders regularly as non-conference opponents.

The Tech AD pushed the topic out there again Sunday at the annual Texas High School Football Coaches Association convention, needling his counterpart, Texas AD Chris Del Conte. As reported by national college football reporter Chris Hummer, Hocutt said, somewhat tongue in cheek, "He’s still scared. Nothing has changed over the course of the year. Ball's in their court. We welcome a chance to play them."

The early 2030s, Hocutt told the A-J last year, is probably the most realistic time frame.

Good for Hocutt to not let the subject die. Clearly, keeping a Texas Tech-Texas series alive is not a priority for UT brass.

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Texas Tech, on the other hand, will be playing in a watered-down Big 12 come 2024. It'll be a competitive conference with a lot of fun, close games. But it'll be a conference void of big brands. The money, the power and the spotlight in college football will be focused on the SEC and the Big Ten beginning next year, if not already.

The top high-school talent will be drawn toward what's already being referred to as a power-two hierarchy. That means Joey McGuire better not have a down season or lose any mojo on the recruiting trail.

That's a dangerous place to be for Texas Tech and the rest of the Big 12.

The Red Raiders need games against marquee brands, especially geographic rivalry games that generations could take for granted. Fans in other regions of the country still can. Georgia-Georgia Tech, Florida-Florida State, South Carolina-Clemson and Kentucky-Louisville are still preserved as late-season non-conference attractions.

The leaders at Pitt and West Virginia had the good sense to resume the Backyard Brawl after a decade's hiatus. Those two programs, separated by 75 miles, have signed agreements to play annually from 2022 through 2025 and again from 2029 through 2032.

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In this region, though, university leaders get a kick out of refusing to play the opponents they should be playing. Hence, the demise of Oklahoma-Oklahoma State, Missouri-Kansas and Texas Tech-Texas A&M, the interruptions of Texas A&M-Texas and Texas-Arkansas and, now, the uncertain future of Tech-Texas.

The UT game's magnitude to Tech is borne out by the following: In 30 of their past 31 football games in Lubbock, all but once since 1962, the Longhorns are the opponent who drew the largest crowd at Jones Stadium. (Texas A&M also was reliably the hottest ticket virtually every year the Aggies came to Lubbock, a series dormant since 2012.)

Cody Campbell, the former Tech lineman who sits on the Tech Board of Regents, summed up the series' value to Tech last September as "easily an eight-figure per year impact on the local community."

"Plus, it impacts our ability to sell season tickets," Campbell said. "It drives TV viewership. The impact is massive. It raises the profile of the university. It gets more butts in the seats.

"And then also it's a traditional rival that we've played for a very long time, and we'd love to see that continue. What I see UT doing is exactly what A&M did to UT whenever (Texas A&M) left for the SEC. They were just refusing to play them."

Tech leaders understand all the above. That's why Hocutt, Campbell, Chancellor Tedd Mitchell, President Lawrence Schovanec and former Chancellor Kent Hance all have urged Gov. Greg Abbott to twist arms in Austin. Abbott's office has said publicly more than once that the governor supports the Tech-UT series continuing.

Unfortunately, the Tech brass has gotten little help from the fan base, many of whom seem content to bid the Longhorns adieu and vie for top-dog status in the watered-down conference. That's not in keeping with Tech's spirited history.

Tech officials and their supporters, wanting to prove themselves against the best competition, spent the first 30 years of the university's existence fighting to be included in the Southwest Conference. In the 1950s, when SMU and Rice joined Arkansas in being against Tech's admission to the SWC, Tech fans boycotted Neiman-Marcus, cutting up and mailing back their store charge cards to the luxury retailer.

It made for good theater, and it proved effective. The SWC admitted Tech in 1956.

Now Red Raiders fans will vote en masse to win Twitter polls and put cactus emojis in their Twitter profiles. Near as I can tell, though, there's no movement to raise heck with Del Conte and the governor.

It's a worthy fight that Hocutt and Tech brass will have to wage alone.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Why it's important that Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt keeps calling out UT