Midweek Musings: The Dead Zone, and Sports Talk When There Are No Sports

On the last day of football season, New Years Eve 2014, I boarded a plan in Atlanta to head back to Fort Worth.  TCU had just laid a beatdown of historic proportions on an Ole Miss squad that toppled almighty Alabama and was ranked in the top 5 for a huge portion of the regular season.  Being present for that game and mocking Ole Miss, and to some extent ESPN, with chants of "S-E-C!!!" was some of the most fun I have ever had.  After a few celebratory scotches and a tower of onion rings it was time to make the journey home.

When I was a kid my dad had a pilot's license and a single engine Cessna.  We used to go up in that thing and fly around Lubbock on the weekends.  He even let me fly the thing (steer in the air) on occasion.  After growing up flying in a plane that was made to hold no more than four people, fear of flying commercially has never really been a thing for me. As we took off, the lights of Atlanta faded away almost immediately into the low hanging cloud cover.  For several minutes I could see nothing else. It had the feeling that were still, floating in a vast, light-blue ocean. It gave me a feeling of comfort, like everything else in the world had stopped and there was nothing but the plane and the vast, empty blueish-gray outside the window.

That's basically where we are right now as TCU fans.  We are floating in a vast purple ocean of nothingness for about two more months.  The amazing football and baseball seasons that we just witnessed are worth looking back on, but as Mike Ditka would say "the past is for losers and cowards."  It's all about 2015 Horned Frog Football from here on out.

Of course we're all anxious.  Probably a lot less than last year at this time, but anxious we are indeed.  Still, as we make our way thorough the dead zone of college sports, we also get to be unrealistically optimistic.  Will Boykin win the Heisman? Will TCU finally reach the goal at the top of their pyramid; winning a national championship?  How will Mike Freeze fair as a freshman linebacker in Gary Patterson's defense? Will TCU protect The Carter and beat the hated Baylor Bears on Black Friday?  The answers to all of these questions, and more, will be revealed in good time.  For now though, the answer to all of them is a resounding YES, and that's what makes this time of year so special.

So don't hold back. Talk some good-natured smack to your friends from other Big XII teams. Heck, it you've got SEC friends talk smack to them too.  Get your click on with Links O' War and devour the news reports about TCU's fall practices and 2016 recruiting class.  Most importantly, have hope, because this is the best time of year to do so.  In a few months, the vast, empty, purple ocean in which we now dwell will be transformed into another kind of purple ocean.  One filled with 50,000 screaming purple fans in a rowdy and rockin' Amon G. Carter Stadium. I'll see you there, scuba gear and all.