Dallas or Arlington?

Here’s why Texas Tech can’t decide where between Duncanville and Lewisville it wants to play Oklahoma State in 2009: roots.

Let me explain. OSU says it will play Texas Tech somewhere in the D-FW Metroplex starting in 2009, it just doesn’t know where. Either Dallas’ Cotton Bowl or Arlington’s new Jerry World.

My vote is for Dallas. Jerry Jones is courting college games to play in his new Dallas Cowboys stadium, which opens in 2009 and already has landed an annual Arkansas-Texas A&M series. Now he wants OSU-Tech, and as our Mike Baldwin reported today, Cowboy athletic director Mike Holder is on the same page with Cowboy czar Jones. Arlington.

But Tech can’t seem to say no to the Cotton Bowl. For good reason. John Scovell was a Tech quarterback star in the 1960s who led an historic upset of Texas. Scovell’s three sons all walked-on at Tech, playing for Spike Dykes or Mike Leach, and John Scovell now is on the Cotton Bowl board and the Tech board of regents.

Wait. There’s more. John Scovell’s father was the legendary Field Scovell, known for decades as Mister Cotton Bowl. Field Scovell led the Cotton Bowl’s selection committee for many years and was one of the driving forces that made the New Year’s Day game a college football classic.

Think about those ties. It’s as if Josh Fields had three sons who went on to play at OSU, and Josh Fields’ dad had helped found the Myriad or something, and Josh Fields was on the OSU board of regents and a member of the OKC All Sports Association. And OSU was trying to decide whether to play a game in Tulsa (for more money) or Oklahoma City.

That’s the decision Tech is facing. So you can understand what’s going on.

I sort of like the compromise espoused by State Fair of Texas president Errol McKoy. Play at JerryWorld in 2009 and at the Cotton Bowl in 2010, then let people decide which they liked best.

Here’s how I think the vote would go. Players: Arlington. Fans: Dallas. The new stadium will be world-class (world-best?), and players, many of whom are D-FW products, will get a jolt playing on the home digs of Tony Romo and Marion Barber, rather than the field where Doak Walker trod. The amenities will be fabulous. But the fans, I believe, would vote for the Cotton Bowl, because of the state fair.

The OU-Texas game has shown us that there’s no atmosphere like a bloodsport football game hard by the Midway and the car show and the corny dog stands, with tens of thousands of people milling around. JerryWorld sits in a parking lot. The Cotton Bowl, during the fair, sits in an amusement park.