Joey McGuire has often roamed the sideline at a football stadium in Texas on a Friday night in September.
This game will feel different for Texas Tech University’s fifth-year head coach.
McGuire’s 13th-ranked Red Raiders (2-0), the reigning Big 12 champions, will play their conference opener in prime time when No. 22 Houston (2-0) visits Galaxy Stadium in Lubbock. Kickoff is set for 8 p.m. Eastern on Fox for what will be Texas Tech’s first regular-season home game on a Friday since 1941.
“It’s weird because I’m so used to Friday nights in the state of Texas is kind of holy ground when it comes to Texas high school football,” said McGuire, a 55-year-old Texarkana native who won three state championships as the head coach at Cedar Hill High School near Dallas from 2003-16.
Even before the Big 12’s release in April of a list of league games being played on days beside Saturday, Texas Tech regents chair and billionaire booster Cody Campbell had heard about the plans to move his school’s conference opener to a different day. He posted on social media that “Friday Night Lights are sacred in the Great State of Texas!” and also wrote that it was “absolutely absurd” that the Big 12 and Fox Sports would consider that.
However, the Big 12 television contract allows for a dozen regular-season football games a year to be played on a day other than Saturday. Commissioner Brett Yormark, who had some public back-and-forth exchanges with Campbell, has said TV ratings for the conference’s Friday night games last season were 64% better than its average rating.
And this isn’t the only time during the 2026 regular season when the Red Raiders will play on a day besides Saturday. Their regular-season finale at home against TCU is a Thursday night game on Thanksgiving (Nov. 26). In their previous 30 seasons in the Big 12, they played only six times on Friday, all on the road and with four of those coming the day after Thanksgiving. The most recent was a 57-7 loss at Texas in 2023.
“Well, obviously people have known for a long time that you play high school football in the state of Texas on Friday night,” McGuire said. “And so this is a little different, but it’s huge.”
This meeting of expected Big 12 title contenders is the first of eight games matching conference teams that won’t be on a Saturday. Five of those are in November. Eleven of the league’s 16 teams will be part of those conference games played outside of Saturdays.
Houston, which played three Friday night games last season, and Texas Tech are among five teams that will play two this year. The Cougars visit Colorado on Nov. 13.
Even playing on a Friday night, this will be Texas Tech’s 10th consecutive home sellout.
“That was one of the things that I was definitely worried about, even though we have the best fan base in the country,” McGuire said. “But we’re also in ‘Friday Night Lights,’ like the world of ‘Friday Night Lights’ in West Texas. That’s where it all began whenever you think about the book and everything like that.”
The Texas Tech campus in Lubbock is a little more than two hours north of Odessa, where the 1988 Permian High School team was the subject of Buzz Bissinger’s book “Friday Night Lights” that was released in 1990. That was adapted into a 2004 feature film starring Billy Bob Thornton as the coach, and a television series with that title had a five-season run from 2006-11.
McGuire is a member of the Texas High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame, as well as the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame. He constantly refers to Texas Tech as the unofficial home of the THSCA, and 11 members of his current staff have ties to the organization. He regularly speaks at the group’s annual convention and hosts clinics for high school coaches each year.
During pregame activities Friday night, McGuire plans to wear his THSCA cap to show support for all prep football coaches and that organization.
And whatever day of the week, McGuire can’t help but admit of the Houston-Texas Tech matchup: “It’s going to be a great game.”