Just to go back to the stupid Ohio State argument that Texas is scared to play in the Horseshoe! At night! Because more articles came up on my feed this morning, especially after Del Conte addressed it at the SEC meetings yesterday.
A few points:
1) Ohio State/Big Ten agreeing to the massive television contract with Fox, CBS, and NBC is the principal issue here. Not Texas. They love to crow about how much bigger their contract is compared to everyone else. Well, the golden rule applies, boys. He who owns the gold makes the rules. Welcome to noon kickoffs, Buckeyes. Don't like it? Too bad. You signed the dotted line. No one forced you. You're the sacrificial lamb for the rest of the conference because you're the biggest draw, especially when Michigan has a down season. Tough titties.
2) Ohio State fans and Texas haters, plus click bait artists, love to project fear on Texas for not wanting to play in The Horseshoe! At night! But that's not it at all.
If Ohio State was playing almost any other program, they'd readily move the game to Sunday night. Why? Because nearly every program in the country is desperate for more exposure, and would sell out living relatives to garner an exclusive prime time nationally broadcast window on a Sunday night. Forget about the consequences.
But Texas doesn't need prime time exposure. We'll get plenty of prime time games this year, because we're Texas, and we're not saddled with an albatross of a television agreement with Fox like we were in the Big 12. Sucks to be you!
What people are enjoying ascribing to fear, is actually arrogance. Ohio State is desperate for a prime time game at home. Texas is not desperate for prime time exposure. We don't need it. We don't have any reason to move the game to Sunday. It creates issues further down the line. So what if San Jose State is not the most fearsome opponent on the schedule. Sarkisian wants to establish the season's rhythms as soon as possible. It doesn't matter how much of a difference it makes on the win/loss schedule. Our program priority is winning a national championship. Moving the opening game to Sunday night puts us further from that goal, regardless of how much impact it has. It has some impact. How much is hypothetical, but it's also entirely unnecessary.
I remember years when that wasn't the case. When the athletic department would schedule games with Hawaii simply to have an excuse to take the entire athletic department on a paid trip for them and their families, never mind the negative impact it would have on the players and team. One of the best moves Mack Brown made early on was to cancel that silly boondoggle. He got the same kind of grief about Texas being scared to play a Hawaii team that was going to be terrible after losing their entire roster.
Ohio State is going to be good. They're literally always good. They don't really have down years or bad coaching hires the way everyone else does. But there's no incentive for Texas to do the Ohio State fan base any favors. "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."
Sort your shit out with Fox. That's not our problem.