Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I know you were all waiting anxiously to hear Jordan Binnington’s explanation for pocketing Alex Ovechkin’s 900th goal puck. He said he “had full intention” to return it.
In today’s SI:AM:
🏈 CFB’s biggest game this week
🏆 NFL execs’ midseason award picks
🤢 Another ugly Broncos win
If you’re reading this on SI.com, click here to subscribe and receive SI:AM directly in your inbox each morning.
All eyes on the Big 12
This weekend’s college football schedule looks pretty good. You’ve got three matchups between AP Top 25 teams, a few tough tests for some Group of 5 playoff contenders and a sneaky threat from a 7–1 Navy team looking to play spoiler against Notre Dame. But there’s one game that stands out above all the rest, and it features two teams that rarely find themselves at the center of the college football universe.
No. 8 BYU and No. 9 Texas Tech will face off in Lubbock on Saturday at noon ET on ABC in a game that could decide both teams’ playoff fates.
Here’s the situation: BYU is undefeated at 8–0, while Texas Tech is 8–1 (5–1 in the Big 12). Only one other team in the Big 12 has fewer than two conference losses—Cincinnati. The Red Raiders and Bearcats will not play each other in the regular season, which makes the tiebreaker situation for a potential Big 12 title game berth a little complicated. If both teams finish with identical conference records, the tie would be broken by comparing each team’s record against common conference opponents. Texas Tech’s conference title hopes (and, therefore, its playoff hopes) get a lot slimmer if it suffers a second conference loss on Saturday and falls into the mess of two-loss Big 12 teams. A Texas Tech win, meanwhile, would leave the Big 12 with no undefeated teams and make BYU’s Nov. 22 game at Cincinnati a potential conference title play-in.
Saturday’s contest is the biggest game Texas Tech will play in almost two decades, and perhaps the biggest game in BYU program history. The Red Raiders have had seven previous games in which both they and their opponent were ranked in the top 10, most recently in 2008, when they spent 12 weeks ranked in the top 10 and had three games against top 10 opponents (wins over Texas and Oklahoma State and a loss to Oklahoma). BYU, on the other hand, has never played in a top 10 matchup. The Cougars have played 53 games while ranked in the top 10 but never against an opponent ranked higher than 14th.
The reason both schools are in this position is that they’ve excelled at building high-priced rosters through NIL. BYU has a large base of highly motivated fans (thanks in large part to its association with the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) who are eager to pony up and help bring top athletes to Provo—and not just in football. BYU landed the consensus No. 1 men’s basketball recruit in the 2025 class, AJ Dybantsa, who reportedly got $5 million from the school’s NIL collective, which matched offers from Alabama, North Carolina and Kansas. At Texas Tech, the fundraising efforts are led by Cody Campbell, an oilman and former Red Raiders offensive lineman, who heads up the NIL collective that has paid $55 million to Texas Tech athletes this year alone. The football roster is believed to be worth about $28 million, the second-most expensive in the nation behind only Texas.
Texas Tech’s investment has paid off, though. The Red Raiders rank fourth this season in points per game and fifth in points allowed, the only team in the nation to rank in the top five in both categories. Linebacker David Bailey, a transfer from Stanford, leads the nation with 11.5 sacks, and Mississippi State transfer cornerback Brice Pollock is tied for the Big 12 lead with four interceptions. Quarterback Behren Morton, a fifth-year senior who has spent his entire career at Tech, leads the conference in both completion percentage and yards per attempt. Sophomore running back Cameron Dickey leads the conference in rushing touchdowns and is third in yardage.
The Red Raiders are the more talented team and have the advantage of playing at home, so it isn’t a surprise that they’re a sizable favorite. (The betting markets favor Tech by 10 points.) But BYU isn’t anything to sneeze at. The Cougars rank in the top 20 nationally in both scoring offense and defense and have one of the best rushing attacks in the nation (ranked 15th with 216.6 yards per game on the ground), thanks to Big 12 rushing leader LJ Martin and dual-threat quarterback Bear Bachmeier.
Bachmeier will be the biggest concern for BYU on Saturday, though. He’s a true freshman, and the combination of playing in a high-stakes game on the road against a defense as ferocious as Texas Tech’s could easily lead to him unraveling. But if he’s able to overcome the inexperience, we should be in for a good one in Lubbock.
The best of Sports Illustrated
- Albert Breer surveys league executives for their midseason awards ballot. Their responses highlight a tight MVP race, a running back as the frontrunner for Offensive Player of the Year and multiple Browns up for honors on the defensive side.
- Breer pulls back the curtain on the conversations, accidents and bold decisions that sent Sauce Gardner to Indianapolis, reshaped the Jets’ core and pushed the Cowboys into a new era at the trade deadline.
- Greg Bishop traces how a once-maligned division has turned into the NFL’s must-watch gauntlet, with three contenders chasing both playoff berths and a new chapter of NFC West supremacy.
- The 8–2 Broncos keep winning ugly, but their sputtering offense and thin margins suggest they’re more of a pretender than a contender in a loaded AFC, writes Matt Verderame.
- Verderame breaks down the biggest matchups, stats and storylines of Week 10—including Eagles-Packers, Ravens-Vikings and Drake Maye vs. the Bucs’ blitz—and makes his picks across the slate.
- Will Laws and Nick Selbe rank the top 50 free agents—from Kyle Tucker to Bo Bichette—and project where each star could land during a busy MLB winter.
The top five…
… things I saw last night:
5. A bizarre bounce that led to a goal for the Canadiens.
4. Sidney Crosby’s cleanup job around the net for a goal against the Capitals. Crosby now has 11 goals in eight games, tied with the Ducks’ Cutter Gauthier for the most in the league.
3. The precision by Raiders punter AJ Cole to get this ball to bounce out at the 1-yard line.
2. The Broncos’ blocked punt that led to what would end up being the winning field goal. (You know it’s a bad Thursday Night Football game when the two best plays are punts.)
1. Hurricanes winger Jackson Blake’s unreal solo effort on a coast-to-coast goal.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Huge Stakes for One College Football Game.
