Texas Tech Football Lands In Liberty Bowl, Is It A Good Thing?

The Texas Tech Red Raiders are bowl-bound but does it mean anything?

The Team

The Texas Tech Red Raiders are coming off a pretty successful season. If you're a fan, I won't bore you with details, but things worked out fairly well. As soon as Texas Tech became bowl-eligible talk of where they would go began. No one ever seems to ask, "Is it worth going to?"

The Game

The question, "Is it worth going to?" has a couple of levels to it, so let's get the first out of the way. Now that college players are able to pick up a couple bucks playing the game, are these showcases worth risking an injury for? For a player that is already an NFL prospect that answer is probably no, and thus you'll see some players skip the game. For a player who hasn't been able to spotlight their abilities for any reason, playing could be their last chance to prove their worth to their team or the pros.

The Worth

The second answers to, "Is it worth going to?" is followed up by more questions including, does the bowl have prestige, or does the bowl have a nice financial incentive to it?  We are knee-deep in bowl games that are kind of "participating trophy" games. The Liberty Bowl does appear to be one of those games, in that there is no consequences in terms of national ratings or championships.

Making this touch determination that the game kind of doesn't matter is easy when you've looked at the names who've played in the past.  Here's the last ten games:

Memphis-Iowa State
Arkansas- Kansas
Texas Tech-Mississippi State
West Virginia - Army
Navy- Kansas State
Oklahoma State - Missouri
Iowa State- Memphis
Georgia-TCU
Arkansas -Kansas State
Texas A&M - West Virginia

The Cash

Now, does any of that seem consequential to you? All of these matchups seem kind of ho-hum. Don't get me wrong, it's a huge deal to make it to a bowl game and the guys should be congratulated, but does it matter? It does.  Each school will get 6 million for the matchup, and that's a pretty big deal.