Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire didn’t have to say anything about BYU. He just beat them 34-7 in the Big 12 Championship Game. His team’s in the College Football Playoff. Life’s good in Lubbock. But when the mics came on, and the conversation turned to the CFP field, McGuire made it really clear he’s riding for the Big 12, and for Kalani Sitake’s squad.
“Whenever the selection committee starts looking at teams, I truly believe the Big 12 deserves two teams in the playoffs,” McGuire said postgame. “Whenever you look at BYU, they’re 11-2, and their two losses are to the No. 4 team in the nation. I have so much respect for Kalani. That’s a really good football team.”
Let’s be honest, that kind of move doesn’t happen every day. Most coaches are way too caught up in their own postgame headlines to talk up the team they just stomped on national television. But McGuire’s point isn’t about sportsmanship. It’s about setting the record straight.
BYU’s two losses came at the hands of a Texas Tech team that’s sitting in the top four of the CFP rankings. That’s it. No losses to unranked teams. No blowout embarrassments outside of today. Just one hell of a gauntlet run through a tough Big 12 schedule that included some heavyweight wins along the way. If you’re gonna punish BYU for playing Tech twice, then what are we even doing?
And McGuire knows what this is really about. It’s not just about BYU. It’s about the Big 12 getting the respect it deserves in a sport that still drools over the same five logos year after year. He’s pulling for the league to get two teams in, not just because it’s fair, but because it’s long overdue. The SEC doesn’t have to beg for that kind of treatment. Neither does the Big Ten.
So props to McGuire for not sticking to the script. He won the trophy, his team’s heading to the playoff, and he still took a second to make sure the committee doesn’t sleep on BYU just because they’ve got a different logo.
He didn’t have to say it. But damn, it mattered that he did.
