It’s only April, but we’ve officially got Big 12 football drama on the radar.
Friday night football means a lot in Texas, and it’s on that principle that Cody Campbell, the Chairman of the Board of Regents at Texas Tech, stands as he openly criticized league commissioner Brett Yormark and the Big 12’s potential shift of the school’s Sept. 19 home game with Houston to Friday night.
Not long after, Yormark answered a request for comment from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal with the following regarding Campbell’s criticism and the subject of Friday night football in the Big 12:
“Cody Campbell does not run the Big 12,” Yormark said. “Our Board and our ADs approved playing 12 games a year off 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 delivers that.
“Friday night Big 12 football games outperformed the Conference’s average rating by 64% in 2025. All of our schools are treated equally during the TV scheduling process and this game fits within our scheduling parameters. I am thankful that our TV partners provide us with these opportunities.”
Campbell snapped back on Thursday morning:
The Big 12 scheduled 10 different Friday night football games last year, including seven conference games. Houston and TCU each contended one or more Friday games in 2025; Texas Tech was one of three Big 12 schools not scheduled to play on a Friday.
Big 12’s 2026 Schedule Set Up
While the 2026 Big 12 regular-season schedule is publicly available, the exact dates and times for each game have not yet been finalized. However, the conference championship game will be played Friday, Dec. 4, 2026, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Texas Tech, even with its unfortunate end in the College Football Player, is still the key player in football in regards to 2026 and beyond. No, it doesn’t entitle Campbell or anyone to make scheduling decisions on behalf of the conference or its television providers – but his point is valid all the same.
High school football – whether we’re talking about Texas, Oklahoma or West Virginia – is a legitimate concern when scheduling conference games. The league already started dipping into those previous games in 2021 and 2022, and it’s clear those timeslots are pretty valuable with folks off work and kicking their feet up after a long week. But cutting into high school football? The very same games coaches are catching up on during the week? It just doesn’t sit right with guys like Campbell.
It’s not to say, though, that college football on Friday is entirely uncommon. The SEC and Big Ten have each scheduled Friday games in recent seasons, but the Big 12 is taking a deliberate stake in the timeslot by flirting with an in-state game like Tech-Houston.
Yormark has made it pretty clear he’s not going to let any one administrator disrupt his plans to grow the league’s football brand, whichever way the tortillas fall.
