Not since The Pirate swooped in and robbed Texas has Texas Tech played in a bowl game that a national audience cared about. The irony of that legendary Michael Crabtree catch from 2008 is that while it ultimately knocked the Longhorns out of the BCS National Championship Game and pushed the Red Raiders to their highest AP Top 25 ranking in program history (No. 2), Mike Leach and Co. missed out on the chance to play for a title. Losing a single game — the wrong game — was all she wrote for Texas Tech in the BCS era. A 65-21 beatdown at the hands of eventual national championship invitee Oklahoma took that opportunity off the table.
Seventeen years later, Texas Tech has the pieces to return to the national stage. Or rather, the Red Raiders are primed to debut on the Playoff stage.
A few things are worth noting before we break down individual Playoff paths. One is that while we’re still in the 12-team era, I’m anticipating a change in 2025. I believe that we’ll get rid of the stipulation that the 4 byes/top-4 seeds will go to the 4 highest-ranked conference champs. One year in, I predict that all parties will get on board with changing that. These rankings, which I’ll roll out over the next 2 weeks, will reflect that anticipated change…