Campbell, chairman of the Texas Tech Board of Regents and financier of the “save college sports” commercials you may have seen during the 2025 football season, said on social media this week that he believed the Red Raiders’ Big 12 home opener against Houston would be played on Friday night. That game is currently scheduled for Saturday, September 19 and could be moved up a day.
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In his post, Campbell directly tagged Yormark.
However, Yormark is not sympathetic to Campbell’s complaints. In a statement to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, he cited the Big 12’s television deal with Fox after first reminding Campbell who was in charge of the conference. He also didn’t question that Tech could play a home game on a Friday night in 2026.“Cody Campbell does not run the Big 12,” Yormark’s statement said. “Our board and ADs approved playing 12 games a year outside of Saturdays in an effort to raise the profile, narrative and viewership of Big 12 football. Texas Tech hosting a primetime game on Friday night offers that.”
“Friday night Big 12 football games exceeded the conference average rating by 64% in 2025. All of our schools are treated equally during the television scheduling process and this game fits within our scheduling parameters. I am grateful that our television partners provide us with these opportunities.”
You can understand why the Big 12 would want to put Texas Tech on a Friday night in 2026. The Red Raiders won the conference a season ago thanks to a transfer-heavy roster funded by NIL payments from Campbell and other donors. Tech bowed out of the College Football Playoff quarterfinals before losing to Oregon in the Orange Bowl.
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Technology should be one of the favorites to win the conference again. And he didn’t play any Friday night games in 2025.
The Red Raiders were one of the few Big 12 teams that didn’t play a Friday game a season ago. Twelve teams played on Friday, while Cincinnati played on Thursday to open the season and TCU played on Monday. Iowa State, which opened the season in Week Zero in Dublin, was the only other team that only played on Saturdays.
The odds of Tech avoiding Fridays for the second straight season are extremely slim. And, as Yormark said, Big 12 schools embraced the Friday night idea anyway. As part of its current television deals with the Big 12 and Big 10, Fox entered the Friday night college football business.
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If the Big 12 teams didn’t want to play on Friday nights and, more importantly, turn down the television money that comes with those games, they could have simply said no.