Texas Tech offers to buy out Week 1 games to play Texas as feud heats up
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The Texas Longhorns and Texas Tech Red Raiders have not played a game of football since 2023 after Texas’ move to the SEC. But Texas Tech is making an audacious public move to try to change that, and it comes with plenty of heat attached to it.
It all started when Texas coach Steve Sarkisian dissed the Red Raiders, their strength of schedule, and the Big XII as a whole.
Last week, Sarkisian was speaking at an event when he pulled no punches in calling out the Longhorns’ former in-state rival and what he feels is their much easier path to the College Football Playoff.
“There’s a team in our state that plays in another conference that has a schedule that I would argue if I played with our twos and our threes, we could go undefeated, and they’ll probably make the CFP this year,” Sarkisian said.
Score another victory for the undefeated SEC in hypothetical games and scenarios. If only it were that easy in real life, where the league has been fully toppled from their perch on top of the sport.
Tech has become a major player in the college football landscape in the NIL era, mainly thanks to the booster efforts of billionaire oil tycoon Cody Campbell. The Red Raiders won their conference for the first time since 1994 and earned their first berth in the CFP. They also spent big in the transfer portal once again, although who knows whether new quarterback Brendan Sorsby will play with his ongoing gambling investigation.
But Sarkisian does have a point, at least about their non-conference schedule. While Texas will finish a home-and-home with Ohio State this year, the Red Raiders will play Abilene Christian, Oregon State, and Sam Houston.
But the comments of the Texas coach have riled up Texas Tech to the point where they are willing to change that. Now.
Tech head coach Joey McGuire was in disbelief over Sarkisian’s comments and challenged him to speak the name of Texas Tech if he wanted to talk about them. He said he is willing to play Texas this year and buy out Abilene Christian to play in Week 1 this year.
Joey McGuire shares his initial reaction upon hearing Steve Sarkisian’s comments about #TexasTech last week:
“I said there’s no way they’re talking about us… because Sark’s a pretty tough guy… I would think if he was talking about us, he’d call us out.”
“They can come to… pic.twitter.com/q7zS2h8tsv
— Cole Banker (@colebankertv) May 28, 2026
Campbell took it a step further. He posted on social media that he is willing to buy out not only Texas Tech’s Week 1 opponent in Abilene Christian, but also Texas’ Week 1 opponent in Texas State to make the game happen.
Upping the ante: @TechAthletics will pay the buyout for both the ACU and Texas State games. Let’s go!!! @CoachSark@_delcontehttps://t.co/IX637eSYmX
— Cody Campbell (@CodyC64) May 28, 2026
Before anyone gets too excited about an old-fashioned duel, there is absolutely no universe in which Texas will back out of playing Texas State the week before they are set to host Ohio State. That game is on the schedule for a reason; it is a preseason warm-up contest. Playing a huge in-state rivalry game against a hyped up opponent set to prove themselves is the last thing Texas wants to do.
Then there’s the actual logistics of moving and setting up the game. Is it in Lubbock? In Austin? Is it at a neutral site? And since the media partners run pretty much everything in college football, who gets to televise the game and when?
It’s a brilliant move from McGuire, Campbell, and Texas Tech because there is precisely a 0.0000000001% chance that this actually happens. But they will come out of it looking like the bigger, bolder, and braver program. And it will poke just one more hole in the SEC’s superiority complex if it looks like Texas is too scared to take the offer to play a team that they just said their backups could easily handle.
The post Texas Tech offers to buy out Week 1 games to play Texas as feud heats up appeared first on Awful Announcing.
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