Big 12’s Reputation Takes a Major Hit w/ Tech Loss

And Whittingham guts Utah/BYU staffs

Author

John Kurtz
January 02, 2026

Thursday was not a good day for Texas Tech or the Big 12. 

After Tech romped through the conference, beating every Big 12 opponent by at least 22 points when its starting quarterback played, the Red Raiders couldn’t muster a single point against the third-place finisher in the Big Ten. 

The offense went three-and-out four times and turned it over four times. Tech finished with 78 rushing yards, and 50 of them came on one play. Take away an incredible individual effort by J’Koby Williams, and the Red Raiders ran for 28 yards on 29 carries.

Quarterback was the most glaring difference in the game. Tech’s defense gave a Herculean effort and validated everything said about it leading up to the game, but Oregon QB Dante Moore made enough plays to keep the Ducks in control throughout.

Meanwhile, Tech QB Behren Morton played his worst game and never for a second looked comfortable. My worst fears about his ceiling in a playoff game were confirmed. 

Having said all that, this season was still a rousing success for Texas Tech. It was the program’s best season in a generation, and the Red Raiders now have proof of concept that going all-in on NIL and resources can work.

Billionaire mega-booster Cody Campbell doubled down on his efforts to keep pushing Tech forward immediately after the game.

The Red Raiders aren’t going anywhere. They will win playoff games if they continue to recruit the high school ranks and the portal at this level.

Programs like Oregon have been recruiting at Tech’s level for years. The Ducks have a deeper and more complete roster. 

Thursday’s loss did send a message: the Red Raiders have to get better offensively, especially at quarterback. They appear to be addressing that with former Cincinnati QB Brendan Sorsby.

In this new era of unbridled spending, Tech is going to be fine, no matter how ugly that loss looked on the big stage.

The damage to the Big 12’s reputation runs much deeper. 

Everyone already saw the gap this year between Texas Tech and the rest of the conference. Now they’ve also seen the gap between the Red Raiders and a top Big Ten program.

The Big 12 is 1-8 all-time in the playoff. Ironically, four of those losses (three of them blowouts) came from big, bad Oklahoma. But regardless of where they came from, the league has to win playoff games to earn real respect.

One national writer already openly asked if the Big 12 is even a power conference at all anymore. 

This is the type of fodder that Texas Tech’s loss will inevitably invite. It’s not always fair, but it is the reality. 

Miami’s run and Tech’s flop totally flipped the prevailing Power Four conference narrative from a couple of weeks ago. 

The Big 12 had three teams in the top 15 of the College Football Playoff rankings and earned a first-round bye. Last year, the team picked last in the Big 12 preseason poll came within a fourth-and-13 stop of beating Texas in a playoff quarterfinal.

Meanwhile, this year’s ACC champion had five losses, and the league barely got a team into the field when Miami jumped Notre Dame. That came on the heels of a 0-2 showing in last year’s playoff and three straight seasons without a playoff appearance before that.

The ACC was on the ropes, but Miami’s run through Texas A&M and Ohio State validated the advantage the league has over the Big 12: proven brand power that can recruit at the highest level. Even with Clemson and Florida State floundering, the ACC still has more upside than the Big 12, at least for now. 

I think Texas Tech can and will get to that level. I’m optimistic that BYU, Utah, or somebody else can also approach it. But Big 12 teams need to prove it sooner rather than later to earn any real respect back, fair or not. 

In hindsight, it hurts that Tech didn’t get the five seed. Handling a Group of Five team in Lubbock before the Oregon game would have helped. The same can be said for Arizona State last season. 

It’s not the time to panic. Two of the last three Big 12 trips to the playoff produced a TCU win over Michigan, a national title game appearance, and the team picked last in the league taking Texas to double overtime. The gap isn’t as wide as people like Dan Wolken would have you think.

Plus, blowouts happen all the time in the College Football Playoff. Mighty Alabama lost by 35(!) to Indiana just hours after the Texas Tech game. More than half (26) of the 49 College Football Playoff games ever played have been decided by three scores or more. That’s 53%. 

If we treated every playoff blowout like a sweeping indictment of a conference, every league would be a fraud by now.

But the Big 12 and its schools still need to fight with everything they have. Every financial avenue has to be on the table to keep building. Tech, BYU, and Utah are stepping up, either through donors or by taking the risk of private equity cash.

If outcomes like Tech’s loss to Oregon continue to happen consistently, the Group of Five will have some company on the playoff autobid chopping block.

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