Guns Up, Raiders! Holiday Bowl 2013

(The following blog was written earlier but not posted due to an unforeseen loss of the internet.)

Congratulations to Kliff Kingsbury and the Texas Tech Red Raiders football team and coaching staff.  The Red Raiders accounted for themselves very well in their Holiday Bowl victory over the Arizona State Sun Devils.   There were many doomsayers who pronounced the Raiders “dead on arrival” (DOA) at the Holiday Bowl.  One of the big reasons for this dire  sentiment was the fact that the Raiders had lost the last five of their regular season games.  According to most of the pro sportscasters, the Red Raiders were too tired and beat up to win the Bowl, while the Sun Devils were reveling in their great upset of the Stanford Cardinal on December 7th.

This blogger, however, having followed both the Red Raiders and Kliff Kingsbury for the past few years, knew that the Tech players were hungry for both another victory and especially for another Bowl win.  And the guys wanted to end Kingsbury’s debut year on a high note, though they had already chalked up a winning football season.  On any given game day, the Arizona State Sun Devils  are a formidable opponent.  Most critics believed they were way out of the Red Raider’s league.  But…on any given day the Red Raiders can stay on the field with the best, even if they don’t post more points by the end of the game.  Just ask Steve Furrier and the Gamecocks!

So the Red Raiders came to Glendale ready to play, and play they did!  The Stanford team came to the game perhaps believing that they had an easily beatable opponent in the Red Raiders.  Maybe they believed the Raiders had lost their spirit with the end of the regular season.  But they were wrong on both counts.  The Raiders were not only in the game to play, but they were playing to WIN!  They hit Arizona hard in the first quarter.  Stanford was not able to respond in kind, and the game got away from them before they realized that they could lose!

So I say congratulations to the Red Raiders and what they accomplished under Kingsbury.  Also, congratulations to Arizona State for their winning season as well.   The Holiday Bowl was one of the better games played this Bowl season.  I can't wait for 2014 football.  I predict that Kingsbury will settle in with the Raiders and they will definitely have a better season next year.  Stanford will no doubt have a great season next year as well.  Will these two teams meet again in 2014?  If they do, what a great game this one will be!