Texas Tech could play a Friday home game in 2026. Noted booster Cody Campbell isn’t happy about the possibility. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark told him to deal with the issue.
Campbell, who chairs the Texas Tech Board of Regents and is the sponsor of the “Save College Sports” ads you might see during the 2025 football season, said on social media this week that he believes the Red Raiders’ Big 12 home opener against Houston will happen Friday night. The game is currently scheduled for Saturday, September 19, but may be moved up a day.
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Campbell directly tagged Yormark in the post.
Yormark, however, was not sympathetic to Campbell’s complaints. In a statement to the Lubbock Avalanche Journal, he first alerted Campbell, who is in charge of the conference, citing the Big 12’s television deal with Fox. He also didn’t deny that Tech might play a home game on Friday night in 2026.
“Cody Campbell does not run the Big 12,” Yormark’s statement said. “Our Board of Trustees and AD approve of resting 12 games on Saturdays each year to enhance the profile, narrative and ratings of Big 12 football. Texas Tech’s Friday night primetime game accomplishes that.”
“Ratings for the 2025 Friday night Big 12 football games are 64 percent higher than the conference average. All of our schools are treated equally in the television scheduling process and this game fits within our scheduling parameters. I am grateful to our television partners for providing us with these opportunities.”
You can understand why the Big 12 would want to play Texas Tech on Friday night in 2026. The Red Raiders won the conference a season ago thanks to a roster of transfers funded by zero payments from Campbell and other donors. Tech bid farewell to the College Football Playoff quarterfinals before losing to Oregon in the Orange Bowl.
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Tech should be the favorite to win the conference again. And it simply wasn’t played on Friday night in 2025.
The Red Raiders were one of the few teams in the Big 12 Conference that didn’t play on Friday last season. Twelve teams play on Friday, with Cincinnati playing its season opener on Thursday and TCU on Monday. Iowa State opens the season in Week Zero in Dublin and is the only team that only plays on Saturday.
The odds of Tech avoiding Friday for the second straight season are slim. And, as Yomark said, the Big 12 schools were on board with the Friday night idea anyway. Fox enters the Friday night college football business as part of its current television deal with the Big 12 and Big Ten.
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If Big 12 teams don’t want to play on Friday nights — and, most importantly, refuse the TV money that comes with those games — they can just say “no.”
