{"id":271574,"date":"2025-11-04T20:21:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T20:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/271574\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T20:21:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T20:21:11","slug":"byus-lj-martin-expected-to-play-vs-texas-tech-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/271574\/","title":{"rendered":"BYU&#8217;s LJ Martin expected to play vs. Texas Tech \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">BYU\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.deseret.com\/sports\/2025\/09\/06\/byu-lj-martin-determined-to-ease-load-of-qb-bear-bachmeier\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.deseret.com\/sports\/2025\/09\/06\/byu-lj-martin-determined-to-ease-load-of-qb-bear-bachmeier\/\">LJ Martin<\/a> is expected to play when the No. 8 Cougars face No. 9 Texas Tech on Saturday morning, per ESPN college football insider Pete Thamel.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Sources: BYU tailback LJ Martin is expected to play this week at No. 9 Texas Tech. He practiced well on Monday and is in line to play Saturday. Martin is BYU\u2019s leading rusher with 789 yards. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/SaycWiBPpC\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/SaycWiBPpC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PeteThamel\/status\/1985758580939829756?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">November 4, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The junior running back, who left BYU\u2019s Oct. 25 game against Iowa State in the first quarter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.deseret.com\/sports\/2025\/10\/26\/byu-iowa-state-ames-cyclones-cougars-review-next-day-bye-week-sitake\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.deseret.com\/sports\/2025\/10\/26\/byu-iowa-state-ames-cyclones-cougars-review-next-day-bye-week-sitake\/\">with an upper-body injury<\/a>, has not played since.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Head coach Kalani Sitake told the media at his weekly press briefing that Martin had been practicing, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.deseret.com\/sports\/2025\/11\/03\/byu-football-kalani-sitake-said-texas-tech-red-raiders-cougars-big-12-rankings\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.deseret.com\/sports\/2025\/11\/03\/byu-football-kalani-sitake-said-texas-tech-red-raiders-cougars-big-12-rankings\/\">the Deseret News previously reported<\/a>, and that he had not been ruled out for Saturday\u2019s game, which he called \u201ca good sign.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/UHKGP77IT5E3JLPDLCGEIU5ZBI.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Special Collector&#8217;s Issue: &#8220;1984: The Year BYU was Second to None&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Get an inclusive look inside BYU Football&#8217;s 1984 National Championship season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Martin, who stands at 6-foot-2 and weighs 220 pounds, <a href=\"https:\/\/big12sports.com\/stats.aspx?path=football&amp;year=2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/big12sports.com\/stats.aspx?path=football&amp;year=2025\">leads the Big 12<\/a> in rushing yards this season and is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/stats\/player\/_\/view\/offense\/stat\/rushing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/stats\/player\/_\/view\/offense\/stat\/rushing\">16th in the country<\/a>. In addition to his 789 rushing yards and five touchdowns, Martin has 11 receptions for 82 yards. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">BYU is a perfect 8-0 to start the season and looks to keep its unblemished record intact when it visits Lubbock for a nationally televised game Saturday against the Red Raiders.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BYU\u2019s LJ Martin is expected to play when the No. 8 Cougars face No. 9 Texas Tech on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,3125,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-271574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-news-feed-local","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}