It was highly anticipated, and on Saturday evening, ESPN officially announced that its “College GameDay” show will go to Lubbock, Texas, next Saturday for the showdown between the currently ranked No. 10 BYU Cougars and No. 13 Texas Tech Red Raiders.
There is a very solid chance both teams will be ranked in the top 10 when the game takes place, as Texas Tech beat Kansas State 43-20 on Saturday, while No. 9 Vanderbilt and No. 10 Miami (BYU and Miami are tied in the AP poll this week) lost prior to the ‘GameDay’ announcement.
The Cougars are on a bye this week. The BYU-Texas Tech game is set to kick off at 10 a.m. Mountain Time (11 a.m. local time in Lubbock) and will air on either ESPN or ABC.
This will mark just the second time ever that ‘GameDay’ will air from Lubbock. The last time it did so was on Nov. 1, 2008, when No. 6 Texas Tech topped No. 1 Texas.
The late Mike Leach, who graduated from BYU, was Texas Tech’s head coach at the time.
Texas Tech was the road team two other times for ‘GameDay’ contests — in 2005 and 2009 — and lost both times.
This will be BYU’s fourth involvement in ‘GameDay.’ It has lost the previous three contests. According to the NCAA, it is tied for the worst record in ‘GameDay’ contests with Arizona, Arizona State and Oregon State.
It will mark the second week in a row that ‘GameDay’ will be at a Big 12 matchup, as it was in Salt Lake City on Saturday for the Utah-Cincinnati game.