Nobody likes the guy that says "I told you so," so I won't join that party.
There isn't pleasure to be taken from being right about the Texas Tech football team, how this year's squad doesn't have the weapons on offense, the ruthless defenders to punish opponents down after down, week after week. Besides, I wrote about that already a month ago after the win over Sam Houston State.
At that time, it was very 50-50 on how Texas Tech fans felt. Many said I was being too hard on a then-undefeated team. Others said I was on the right track, that the Red Raiders hadn't shown the ability to be one of the truly elite teams in the country.
The jury was still out. But now we have a verdict, and the judge doesn't preside in Lubbock.
Cincinnati took the Red Raiders to the woodshed, undid the belt and punished Joey McGuire's team for 60 minutes. If it wasn't the slow start (again), it was the offense being unable to generate anything meaningful (again) or the defense coming unglued with the Bearcats looking to test their awful pass defense (and succeeding) then putting the 37-24 win on ice with their bread-and-butter rushing attack.
The cracks in the foundation showed on opening night. Last week's decimation of Arizona State placated some of those early concerns, but it was merely window dressing covering up the hoarding of bad vibes and even worse miscalculations.
Where Texas Tech goes from here is the ultimate question, which would also be the case had the Red Raiders turned on the jets in the second half like they had throughout the first half of the season.
Losing one game doesn't end a season. It does, however, put a lot more pressure on Texas Tech to be nearly perfect the rest of the way.
Coming off of BYU's win over Notre Dame, there was talk of the Big 12 Conference possibly getting three teams into the College Football Playoff. That, of course, relied on Texas Tech running the table and stopping the Cougars in Arlington, plus one of Houston/Utah/Oklahoma State having just one setback in conference play.
That dream of a three-bid Big 12 is probably dead. At the very least, the vision no longer includes Texas Tech. While the Red Raiders don't have to see BYU or Utah in the regular season, the back half of their schedule was always going to be the biggest test.
And Cincinnati was not supposed to be one of those tests.
Now Texas Tech must simply run the table, earn wins over Arizona, West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Baylor and TCU. It also has to hope the tiebreakers go their way elsewhere, or everyone else takes at least one or two more losses down the stretch.
The fate of Texas Tech's season is no longer in their own hands. They need help just to get to Arlington, and short of a win there, the CFP is likely out of reach without any quality wins in non-conference play to tout (sorry, Oregon State doesn't count).
None of that really matters if the Red Raiders don't fix their own shortcomings. Getting Cameron Dickey back isn't going move the needle for an offense that can't sustain a run block very well, or a passing game that, outside of Kenny Johnson, has been unreliable (and Will Hammond isn't looking to anyone else anyway).
Like it or not, Texas Tech is exactly who we thought it was after the Sam Houston game. Now the rest of the country got to see it, too.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech's CFP chances on life support after Cincinnati loss | Giese