Note: Turburner is excited to have Amanda Staver contributing to the site. She's a huge college football fan, a Sooner grad, and will provide great insight from deep in the heart of Big 12 South Country. Amanda will be posting here every Thursday and I'm excited to have a new voice on the site, especially someone as passionate about the sport as she is. Leave her a commnent, check out her own blog, and follow on her twitter. What I'm saying is, get involved! Thanks for reading and welcome, Amanda!
Texas Tech doesn’t get the national television coverage like some of their rivals in the Big 12 South, Texas and Oklahoma for example, but they do have something those teams do not: a new reality show. The new reality show called “The Ride” will not only focus on the football program, but will showcase the basketball teams, track team, baseball, volleyball, and women’s soccer. For those of you who don’t remember, this is Tech’s second reality show. The first being on ESPN called “Knight School”, where students vied for a spot on the Texas Tech basketball team under the infamous Bobby Knight.
The camera crews have been filming the football team since the beginning of the Big 12 Media Days and have been following them at practice since. Head Coach Tommy Tuberville said in a Texas Tech athletic press release, “With the popularity of reality shows on television, we thought this would be the perfect way to showcase not only our football program, but other sports at Texas Tech as well”.
With all the bad publicity the University received last year with the Adam James situation and the firing of Coach Mike Leach, it seems as though the school has been going into a complete media frenzy to get good press. Coach Tuberville has been popping up everywhere, making state-wide and national media rounds all summer long. Having a reality show in the midst of all the revamping Texas Tech has done in the past year could be a major distraction for the athletes.
Another question to ask is; will “The Ride” actually have an impact in the recruiting for Texas Tech? Guess we will have to watch and see.
“The Ride” will be a 30 minute show with a 38 episode season. Its kickoff episode is airing September 4th on Fox Sports Southwest and other media outlets nationwide. The episode starts off highlighting the Red Raiders football team who start their season the next day against Southern Methodist University.
(Slideshow Photo: Mark J. Rebilas/ US Presswire)
