Texas Tech Got Good Enough To Create A New Problem: Nobody Wants To Schedule Them

Texas Tech Red Raiders coach Joey McGuire spent years trying to turn Lubbock into a place college football’s biggest programs had to take seriously. He appears to have succeeded so thoroughly that Texas Tech now has a new recruiting pitch nobody puts on the graphics: other teams would rather not play them.

The Red Raiders have open Power Four dates after Mississippi State erased a 2028-29 home-and-home and NC State backed out of a 2027 trip to Lubbock. McGuire has also said Texas A&M and USC have not jumped at opportunities, leaving Texas Tech in the strange position of actively shopping for dangerous games while everyone else checks whether Coastal Carolina is free.

Texas Tech Is Discovering The Downside Of Becoming Scary

“We’re open to playing anyone,” McGuire said Wednesday.

That is usually the sentence coaches say immediately before proposing a matchup with somebody three time zones away. In this case, Texas Tech actually has holes to fill.

Mississippi State canceled its scheduled 2028 and 2029 series after the SEC moved to a nine-game conference schedule, a change that has caused programs around the country to reshuffle future nonconference slates. NC State also pulled out of its planned 2027 game in April as the ACC’s schedule expanded.

So this is not a conspiracy where athletic directors gather in a dark room and agree never to answer calls from Lubbock.
But Texas Tech becoming legitimately good does not help.

The Red Raiders went 12-1 in the 2025 regular season, won their first Big 12 championship and reached the College Football Playoff quarterfinals. They also poured money into roster building and emerged as a program capable of buying proven portal talent instead of simply hoping a three-star develops into Patrick Mahomes.

A road game at Texas Tech used to offer a power-conference opponent and a manageable résumé boost.

Now it offers the possibility of losing by 14 while tortillas rain from the stands.

Excellent television. Less exciting for an athletic director protecting playoff math.

McGuire has already tried the loud approach. After Steve Sarkisian mocked Texas Tech’s schedule in May, McGuire challenged Texas to play in Week 1 and even had booster Cody Campbell offer to cover the necessary buyouts.

Texas did not accept.

College Football’s Playoff Incentives Are Making Good Games A Terrible Idea

That is the larger problem.

The expanded playoff was supposed to make marquee nonconference games safer. Lose a close September game to another contender and, theoretically, there should still be plenty of road left.

Programs have instead watched strong schedules become potential land mines.

If an athletic director can choose between a dangerous Texas Tech team and a much safer opponent while still reaching the playoff with the same record, the brave option comes with very little reward.

CBS Sports noted that Texas Tech is running into a market where future openings are already limited. Add conference expansion, the fallout from the Brendan Sorsby situation and the fact that McGuire’s roster is no longer anybody’s preferred tune-up game, and finding a dance partner gets complicated fast.

It is an absurd problem for Texas Tech to have.

For years, the Red Raiders wanted national respect badly enough to spend, recruit, and talk like a contender before everyone agreed they were one.

Now they have the Big 12 trophy and playoff appearance to prove it.

The reward is apparently leaving voicemails.