I'm a huge college football fan. Sure, it's my job to watch and cover the Texas Tech football team, but even before I had this job I was a huge Texas Tech fan. I grew up in Lubbock and attended dozens of Texas Tech football games and even more baseball games with some Dickey and Knight basketball games thrown in, but I didn't attend Texas Tech University.

Should I sell all my Texas Tech gear and disavow it?

I get the funny ha-ha joke about Texas being a bunch of Walmart fans, but to me the joke immediately backfires. I mean, can you imagine being so incredibly successful and powerful as a university, athletic department, and brand that people who have no connection with you want to be associated with you so they spend thousands of dollars in the course of their lifetimes to root you on?

That's a bad thing? I hope that Texas Tech wins several National Championships in major sports in the next decade and the amount of Texas Tech fans balloons so much that Walmart stores across West Texas and in Big 12 country carry Double Ts right beside the local university gear. That would be awesome.

I don't care that Jim Bob and Billy Jo went to community college and are illiterate. If they want to wear an ugly orange shirt and have an incredibly poor return on investment, that's their prerogative. If they want to grow up in the far reaches of the state or across America and choose a program that gets top 15 recruiting classes for a decade straight to only miss bowl games and burn through three coaches just like programs who recruited in the 50s and beyond, that's their choice.

If they want to shop at Walmart and then claim swimming and diving as a major sport just to feel the warmth inside that they didn't receive as a child and are now trying to cope with college athletics, that's their God-given right.

I'll continue being an LCU Chap that roots for my Red Raiders, and they can continue to hope they return to power only to fall comically short in their burnt orange.