{"id":314266,"date":"2026-05-29T17:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T17:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/314266\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T17:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T17:39:08","slug":"texas-tech-hc-not-ducking-steve-sarkisian-smoke-we-would-love-to-play-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/314266\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Tech HC Not Ducking Steve Sarkisian Smoke: &#8216;We Would Love To Play Texas&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-a2155f14=\"\">Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian is talking trash about Texas Tech, but Red Raiders head coach Joey McGuire is ready to take out the trash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-a2155f14=\"\">Earlier this month, Sarkisian blasted Texas Tech&#8217;s competition in the Big 12.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-a2155f14=\"\">&#8220;There&#8217;s a team in our state that plays in another conference that has a schedule that I would argue if I played with our twos and our threes, we could go undefeated, and they&#8217;ll probably make the CFP this year,&#8221; Sarkisian said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-a2155f14=\"\">The Red Raiders are coming off a 2025 campaign that saw them go 11-1 in the regular season, beat the BYU Cougars in the Big 12 Championship and earn a No. 4 seed in the College Football Playoff. Texas Tech was then shut out by the Oregon Ducks in the quarterfinal round, 23-0.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-a2155f14=\"\">With that said, the Longhorns, who entered the season as the No. 1 ranked team in the country, missed the playoff, ultimately finishing 10-3 overall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-a2155f14=\"\">&#8220;We would love to play Texas \u2026 We&#8217;ll find out if their twos and threes can win in this conference,&#8221; McGuire said on Thursday at the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Big12Conference\/status\/2060106072283586875?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2060106072283586875%7Ctwgr%5E15896d324f5759666897ae23389c7f5aefe6a783%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.espn.com%2Fcollege-football%2Fstory%2F_%2Fid%2F48905301%2Fmcguire-texas-tech-willing-play-sarkisian-texas-week-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Big 12 spring meetings<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-a2155f14=\"\">Moreover, Texas Tech Chairman of the Board of Regents Cody Campbell posted to X on Thursday that the Red Raiders &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CodyC64\/status\/2060118652888682841?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2060118652888682841%7Ctwgr%5E15896d324f5759666897ae23389c7f5aefe6a783%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.espn.com%2Fcollege-football%2Fstory%2F_%2Fid%2F48905301%2Fmcguire-texas-tech-willing-play-sarkisian-texas-week-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">will pay the buyout<\/a>&#8221; for both teams&#8217; opening games of the 2026 college football season (Texas Tech begins with a home game against the Abilene Christian Wildcats on Sept. 5 and Texas begins with a home game against the Texas State Bobcats on Sept. 5), so they can square off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-a2155f14=\"\">Of course, Texas left the Big 12 Conference for the SEC after the 2023 season, which is the last time the two programs faced off, with the Longhorns winning 57-7 in Austin and taking five of the last six matchups; Texas is 54-18 in the all-time series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"false\" data-v-a2155f14=\"\">McGuire is entering his fifth season as Texas Tech&#8217;s head coach, with the Red Raiders sporting a 35-18 record under him from 2022-25. Sarkisian is entering his sixth season as Texas&#8217; head coach, with the Longhorns a combined 48-20 under him from 2021-25, highlighted by two appearances in the College Football Playoff (2023 and 2024) and three consecutive double-digit winning seasons (2023-25).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian is talking trash about Texas Tech, but Red Raiders head coach Joey&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[315,261,27,29,537,28,415],"class_list":["post-314266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-big-12","tag-college-football","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-longhorns","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-tech-red-raiders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}