The stakes are far different for Texas Tech and West Virginia in Saturday’s noon matchup at Mountaineer Field.
The seventh-ranked Red Raiders (10-1, 7-1) could very well be playing to secure one of two spots in the Big 12 Conference title game and would almost certainly lock in one of 12 bids to the College Football Playoff with a victory in Morgantown.
At No. 5 in the CFP rankings, a potential second loss next weekend in Arlington, Texas almost certainly would not cause Texas Tech to drop out of the playoff picture.
“Our guys know exactly what’s at stake,” Red Raiders’ head coach Joey McGuire said. “When this all started, if you’d have told us going into the last game, if we win, we’re win, we know that’s the case, and we plan on making sure we’re ready to play. We’ve played well at 11 a.m., so excited about that.”
Should Arizona State lose Friday to Arizona, the Red Raiders will secure a spot in the Big 12 title game before facing the Mountaineers. The Sun Devils are the only team to defeat Texas Tech.
“The way I look at it, if we don’t win the game, we’re not in. We bring in a lot of scenarios and the one scenario we bring in is two losses and if Arizona State wins on Friday, some head-to-head stuff and comparisons, we’re not in the Big 12 championship,” McGuire said. “We’re looking at this game to where we want to win. We want to be as healthy as possible and we are because of the bye week. We have to come in guns a-blazing. It’s not protect this guy or protect this guy. If you don’t win Saturday and get in the Big 12 Championship, you can’t save anybody for anything else.”
The Red Raiders are a 24-point favorite against WVU. While the Mountaineers (4-7, 2-6) are assured of concluding their 2025 campaign over the weekend, Tech unquestionably has the most impressive resume of any Big 12 team, especially considering it handed BYU its lone loss, 28-9.
BYU, No. 11 in the CFP Rankings, and No. 13 Utah, have three total losses and one excluding Texas Tech.
The Red Raiders are 9-0 in games starting quarterback Behren Morton has played.
“I thought we could really get close, but I’d have never dreamed we’d have gotten this close. This team, it seems like they’ve been together from high school recruiting until now,” McGuire said.
Yet McGuire is wary of the Mountaineers, understanding WVU has been far better over its last four Big 12 games than the team that lost its four league games by an average of 27.8 points and was no closer than 14 in any contest.
West Virginia is 2-2 since and plus-9 in point differential, while true freshman quarterback Scotty Fox Jr. has started five straight games behind center, providing an improved offense with a level of stability and showing plenty of positive moments over his last four starts.
“What’s very impressive is once they really settled on their freshman quarterback Fox, he has played really well, beating Houston at Houston, beating Colorado and a good game their last game (25-23 loss at Arizona State). He’s playing really well,” McGuire said. “He’s going to give them a spark, a dual-threat guy. It’s going to be a really interesting game. The bye week was good for us. I was excited to have that bye week. At first, whenever I looked at the schedule, I thought it was going to be really weird to have a bye week before our last game, but much-needed for us.”
WVU, too, enters of its second bye week, and though this will mark the Mountaineers’ first game playing without bowl eligibility within reach, McGuire doesn’t anticipate the Mountaineers will lay down.
“They’re playing really hard,” McGuire said. “I was asking [McGuire’s son Garrett, Tech’s running backs coach] what do you think about these guys, and he said, ‘I’ll tell you right now, they’re playing really hard.’ That means they still believe. A lot of that has to do with their freshman quarterback. He’s playing a lot better. They threw him in a couple times against BYU and you could see the game was really fast for him. The game has slowed down.
“Whenever you have a vet coach that’s won 194 games, they’re 4-7 and can’t be bowl eligible, but they get to play the No. 5 team in the nation. They’re going to be jacked up. It’s a really tough place to play. Between Baylor and Tech, I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a win there before. It’s going to be a tough game. We’re taking this game like every game that we’ve played this year. This is a playoff game for us. We know that if we win, we’re in.”