ARLINGTON, Texas — BYU football coach Kalani Sitake and Texas Tech counterpart Joey McGuire have shared a few meals together, and they’ve talked about their teams making the Big 12 championship game.
“If you want me at my best — Joey understands this — it’s usually when we’re eating,” said Sitake, a former Cougars fullback now in his 10th season as their head coach. “If you want to talk about manifesting … we talked about playing each other in the championship game. We manifested it, and now here we are.”
They will meet with the Big 12 title on the line at noon Eastern on Saturday at AT&T Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. No matter the outcome there, McGuire’s Red Raiders (11-1), No. 5 in this week’s AP Top 25 poll, are a virtual lock for a spot in the College Football Playoff when the 12-team bracket is revealed Sunday.
For the Big 12 to have a second team among the dozen in the national championship chase that begins in a couple of weeks, the 11th-ranked Cougars (11-1) almost certainly have to beat the Red Raiders this time, something they weren’t able to do four weeks ago in Lubbock.
Texas Tech, one of six teams to be part of all 30 Big 12 seasons, is in the championship game for the first time after investing millions of dollars in the NCAA transfer portal. (This is the league’s 24th title game with none between 2011-16.) This is also the first Big 12 title game for BYU, which joined the conference in 2023 after 12 seasons as an independent. The Cougars’ most recent league title game was the 1998 Western Athletic Conference showdown they lost to Air Force.
“Two very physical teams. I think the two best teams in the conference are playing,” McGuire said. “He’s a players’ coach like me. He loves his guys, and I’m just honored and fired up, so impressed with his team. I’m sitting here watching his last few games since we played, and they just keep getting better and better.”
There has not been a repeat matchup since the Big 12 title game resumed in 2017, after the league scrapped divisions. Oklahoma made four consecutive appearances from 2017-20 but faced a different team each time. In the five games since, only Oklahoma State has appeared twice, losing in 2021 and 2023.
Texas Tech won 29-7 on Nov. 8 in one of the most-hyped games ever on the Lubbock campus. It was spotlighted with ESPN’s “College GameDay” telecast there for the three hours before kickoff of what was the Big 12’s first conference matchup of top-10 teams since 2021.
With league rushing leader LJ Martin (102.4 yards per game) hampered by a shoulder injury that day, the Cougars had season lows for total offense (255 yards) and points. They also committed three turnovers, with standout linebacker Jacob Rodriguez having an interception and a fumble recovery for the Red Raiders while also doing a Heisman Trophy pose. BYU trailed 26-0 before freshman quarterback Bear Bachmeier — a 2,593-yard passer this season — connected with Chase Roberts on a 6-yard touchdown midway through the fourth quarter.
BYU hasn’t been held to fewer than 24 points any other time this season. Texas Tech scored on six of seven trips inside the 20-yard line, but that included five field goals.
“It’s hard to beat somebody twice. … Your team’s why is very important on beating somebody twice,” said McGuire, who told his coaches to “really dig in to the first game of where we missed the mark, and some stuff where they could take advantage of us (and) where we could take advantage of them.”
That “why” for the Red Raiders is winning their first outright Big 12 title. The closest they have been was a three-way tie with Oklahoma and Texas for the South Division lead in 2008, but they missed making the championship game on the tiebreaker.
Martin, who is from El Paso and was recruited by the Red Raiders, has rushed for 405 yards and six touchdowns in BYU’s three games since the loss.
Red Raiders quarterback Behren Morton (2,248 passing yards with 20 touchdowns and four interceptions this season) missed two games, including not playing in their loss at Arizona State, and he got banged up before halftime in two others. He has been back the past four games, with an open date mixed in, and in the past two games completed 39 of 51 passes (76.5%) with four touchdowns and no interceptions.
“Our quarterback’s feeling as good as he’s felt all year long,” McGuire said. “Whenever Behren plays well, we play a really high level.”
Both coaches should feel pretty good, too, after each got a new contract this week.
Sitake had conversations with Big Ten member Penn State and was considered a top candidate for that vacancy until he agreed Tuesday to a long-term contract extension with BYU, where he is 83-44 with four 10-win seasons.
McGuire, 34-17 in his fourth season leading the Red Raiders, got a revamped deal that will pay him $6.5 million next season with $100,000 annual increases to $7.1 million by 2032. That replaces a six-year deal he got at the end of the 2022 season, also with $100,000 increases each year, that would have topped out at $4.6 million in 2028.