{"id":41658,"date":"2025-11-09T00:15:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T00:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/41658\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T00:15:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T00:15:09","slug":"by-certifying-itself-as-big-12s-premier-team-texas-tech-has-control-of-its-destiny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/41658\/","title":{"rendered":"By certifying itself as Big 12\u2019s premier team, Texas Tech has control of its destiny"},"content":{"rendered":"

LUBBOCK \u2014 Texas Tech<\/a> operates under a 24-hour rule after games. The team offers itself a day\u2019s worth of time to celebrate an individual win, mourn an individual loss, debrief and review tape before it shifts focus forward to whichever opponent lies ahead. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a method inherently unique to the Red Raiders and it\u2019s by no means an inherently misguided one either.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just, like, can all of this be accounted for before Sunday night? <\/p>\n

Can the momentous week that was \u2014 one that included a best-ever position in the College Football Playoff poll<\/a>, a long-awaited visit from ESPN\u2019s College GameDay crew<\/a> and a definitive win that might\u2019ve been the program\u2019s most important victory in nearly two decades<\/a> \u2014 be bottled and stashed before the 60 Minutes theme ticks?<\/p>\n

Sports Roundup<\/p>\n

Get the latest D-FW sports news, analysis and opinion delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, Kevin Sherrington’s A La Carte.<\/p>\n

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Can\u2019t it breathe a bit?<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t it be a 48-hour rule?<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t it be pushed back until, say, Monday morning, like a swath of Texas Tech students are certainly set to do with class assignments after a weeklong party in Raiderville? <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single week is the biggest game of the year,\u201d Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez<\/a> petitioned. \u201cYou have to take that approach to be a good team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The argument against the in-house policy stops there. The Red Raiders, by any and all accounts one can muster, are a good, if not great, team and have every right and obligation to consider the future more than the past. <\/p>\n

They\u2019ve got it by the reins. <\/p>\n

The No. 8 Red Raiders certified themselves as the Big 12\u2019s premier team and a legitimate playoff contender on a national stage with a 29-7 win vs. previously unbeaten No. 7 BYU<\/a> in front of 60,229 early-arriving fans at Jones AT&T Stadium. <\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"Texas<\/p>\n

Their fate is now no longer beholden to the twists that college football generates and can punch a ticket to the Big 12 championship game and, in turn, the playoff on their own accord. The Red Raiders (9-1, 6-1) are alone atop the league leaderboard for at least a week and can qualify for the conference title game at Arlington\u2019s AT&T Stadium <\/a>if they win their final two regular-season games. <\/p>\n

They\u2019re one of three teams \u2014 alongside BYU and Cincinnati \u2014 that each have just one conference loss. They hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over BYU, though, but wouldn\u2019t need to use it if they win out. The Cougars (8-1, 5-1) and Bearcats face each other Nov. 22 in what could be a de facto play-in game for the conference championship. Texas Tech plays UCF and West Virginia, two teams with a combined three league wins, before the regular season ends. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what we expected,\u201d Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire said. \u201cWe expected to win this game. But we\u2019ve got a game next week and we\u2019ve got a game against West Virginia. This game right here means nothing other than we went 1-0 against a really good football team. We\u2019ve got to have the 24-hour rule to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

McGuire believes the Red Raiders \u201chave another gear\u201d despite the fact that they won their first top-10 matchup since they beat No. 8 Oklahoma State on Nov. 8, 2008 and hosted ESPN\u2019s raucous pregame show for the first time since Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree teamed up to down top-ranked Texas<\/a> a week before that. <\/p>\n

The Red Raiders were imperfect on offense<\/a> and settled for four field goals \u2014 five overall \u2014 in the red zone. Oft-hobbled quarterback Behren Morton<\/a> held the ball too long at times, took four long first-half sacks and completed just 17 of his 32 passes for 219 yards and an interception. His one touchdown was a perfectly placed ball thrown to wide receiver Caleb Douglas in the corner of the endzone for a 9-yard score that gave the Red Raiders a 10-0 lead with 19 seconds left in the first quarter. <\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"BYU<\/p>\n

They could\u2019ve stopped there. Texas Tech\u2019s defense, statistically the nation\u2019s best according to Pro Football Focus metrics, contained freshman quarterback Bear Bachmeier and held the Cougars scoreless and out of the red zone until the fourth quarter. Their 8-play, 75-yard drive with 10:46 left to play in regulation was their only possession that spanned more than 50 yards. <\/p>\n

The Cougars averaged 35.8 points per game in their first eight and hadn\u2019t scored seven or fewer points in a game in over two seasons. Rodriguez \u2014 who finished with a team-high 14 tackles and drew Heisman Trophy-caliber praise from McGuire and teammates \u2014 intercepted Bachmeier in the third quarter and recovered a fumble forced by defensive lineman Lee Hunter in the fourth to ice it. The Red Raiders recorded just one sack and four tackles for loss but dealt Bachmeier relentless pressure, held the dual-threat quarterback to just 12 yards on 11 carries and limited the Cougars to just a single offensive play of 10-plus yards. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so many ways that we can play better,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cYou saw on that touchdown drive that they had, they were just able to move the ball down the field at ease. We are a better team than we were last year, but we\u2019re a different team than we were last year. There\u2019s still a lot of things to clean up to take an even bigger step.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sounds an awful lot like the head coach that he\u2019s now spent three seasons with. The Red Raiders introduced McGuire four years ago to the day of Saturday\u2019s game. They\u2019re 32-17 since. They\u2019ve bathed in oil money and reeled seismic transfer classes because of it. They\u2019ve dragged a national spotlight to West Texas and performed accordingly.<\/a> They\u2019ve positioned themselves to make a legitimate run at the postseason. <\/p>\n

McGuire, asked if he could\u2019ve imagined this four years ago, sought Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt out of the postgame press conference crowd. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe expected this moment,\u201d McGuire said, \u201cdidn\u2019t we?\u201d <\/p>\n

They\u2019re in the driver\u2019s seat for it, too. <\/p>\n

While Texas Tech dominates BYU, Red Raiders have key inconsistency to fix on offense<\/a>5 thoughts from Texas Tech-BYU: Red Raiders make statement in decisive win over top 10 foe<\/a><\/p>\n

Find more Texas Tech coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK \u2014 Texas Tech operates under a 24-hour rule after games. The team offers itself a day\u2019s worth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[732,7092,3688,154,27,29,28,415],"class_list":{"0":"post-41658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-behren-morton","10":"tag-colleges","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-texas-headlines","14":"tag-texas-news","15":"tag-texas-tech-red-raiders"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41658","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=41658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}