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Texas Tech football gets wish of first-round bye in CFP
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- Texas Tech football gets wish of first-round bye in CFP
Joey McGuire started talking about the Texas Tech football team's inclusion in the College Football Playoff weeks ago. While many in the college football sphere wanted to see the atmosphere of a CFP game in Lubbock, McGuire has been adamant that he wanted the Red Raiders to earn a first-round bye.
McGuire wasn't the only one in the Womble Football Center who wanted that break between the Big 12 Conference championship and whichever New Year's Six bowl the Red Raiders would get to. Senior defensive tackle Lee Hunter heard that if that came about, Texas Tech players would get some time off around Christmas.
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For Hunter, that meant being able to spend the holiday with his daughter.
"He goes, 'You shouldn't have told me that, Coach,'" McGuire recalled Hunter telling him. "'They're in trouble.' And he was really serious. I thought he was joking. He goes, 'I can play even harder, Coach.' I was like OK, well. ... I think somebody might have reminded him before the game, 'They're trying to keep you away from your daughter on Christmas.'"
Hunter held up his end of the bargain, being an even more noticeable presence in Texas Tech's defense's dominance of BYU after the opening drive of the game. The 34-7 win cemented Texas Tech's status as the No. 4 team in the final CFP rankings, which gives the Red Raiders a trip to Miami for the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.
McGuire said getting the bye allows Texas Tech more time to heal some of the nagging injuries. That doesn't mean Skyler Gill-Howard will be ready to go by January, though.
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Gill-Howard, the emotional leader of the Texas Tech defense, has been out since October after undergoing ankle surgery . He has not been ruled out for the season, the Red Raiders hopeful the Northern Illinois transfer would be able to get back on the field eventually. That would require the Red Raiders to get further into the playoffs, though.
Texas Tech's Lee Hunter carries John Curry off the field after Curry recovered a fumble in the the Big 12 Conference championship game, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2025, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
"He's out of the boot now," McGuire said of Gill-Howard. "He's in the pool running and next part will be AlterG (antigravity treadmill) to where it'll be a little bit more of his weight and then land running."
The team will spend this week lifting weights and running without putting on pads. Coaches, meanwhile, will turn the majority of their attention on Oregon , the No. 5 seed in the CFP and the favorite to be Texas Tech's opponent in the quarterfinals.
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The Ducks have a home game against 12-seed James Madison on Dec. 20, the winner moving on to face Texas Tech. McGuire has spent time stumping for BYU's inclusion in the CFP and said again Sunday that "it's tough to some teams that, you know, should be in the playoffs that aren't in the playoffs."
"I have all respect in the world for any of the Group of 5 teams and everything," McGuire continued, "but it's going to take a lot to beat Oregon at Oregon."
Tech's top assistants will start prework on Oregon while graduate assistants and quality control coaches will scout James Madison later this month.
While McGuire wanted the first-round bye, the brief history of the 12-team CFP doesn't favor those who have nearly a month off between games. Last year's Top 4 seeds all lost their quarterfinal games, though that was before the field as straight seeding, where the Top 4 teams in the country occupy those spots in the final bracket.
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"I think one of the big things," McGuire said, "is we're a really old team. We've got a lot of vets and they are very serious about winning in a few weeks and trying to make a run at this thing. Our deal all year long is why not us? So we're going to find out quick, why not us?"
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Orange Bowl awaits Texas Tech football's first trip to CFP
