Texas Shouldn’t Fall For Texas Tech’s Trap

Texas Tech wants the Texas Longhorns to believe this is about football. It isn’t.

LonghornsWire claims this is about attention, leverage and a Red Raiders program trying to turn Steve Sarkisian’s Big 12 schedule jab into a billboard, and it's not completely wrong.

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After Sarkisian suggested a team in another Texas conference could run through its schedule with backups, Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire fired back with a Week 1 challenge.

“We would love to play Texas,” McGuire said.

Great line. Great theater. Not exactly realistic.

McGuire said he’d spoken with Texas State coach G.J. Kinne and Abilene Christian coach Keith Patterson about shuffling games, with Texas Tech buying out its matchup against Abilene Christian and Texas doing the same with Texas State. Then came the hook.

“We can figure out if their twos and threes can win this conference,” McGuire said.

That’s the quote Texas Tech wanted everywhere. And it worked.

But here’s the problem ... college football schedules aren’t fantasy football lineups.

Texas doesn’t just erase a home opener less than 100 days before kickoff because Texas Tech got its feelings hurt.

There are ticket sales, travel plans, hotel blocks, operations, TV windows, stadium staffing, bands, donors and a mountain of money tied to the existing game.

Texas also has no reason to give up a home date at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium just to make Tech feel validated.

Sarkisian’s point wasn’t that Texas’ backups would beat Texas Tech straight up.

His point was about the overall grind of SEC football compared with the Big 12. Texas already voluntarily scheduled Ohio State.

The Longhorns don’t need to accept a rushed Lubbock trap game to prove they’re not scared.

That’s what makes the whole thing feel performative.

Texas Tech and booster Cody Campbell can talk about Lubbock, AT&T Stadium and buyout money all they want. It doesn’t change the obvious: this was never likely to happen.

It was designed to make Texas say no, then let Tech scream that the Longhorns ducked them.

That’s clever. It’s also transparent.

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The Texas-Texas Tech series has history, but it hasn’t been equal.

Texas leads it 55-18, which is domination dressed up as a rivalry. For Tech, beating Texas has always meant everything.

For Texas, beating Tech was usually just business.

That’s why the Longhorns left the Big 12. Texas Tech can call. Texas doesn’t have to answer.

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