Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark snapped back at Cody Campbell, saying the chairman of the Texas Tech University System Board of Regents “does not run the Big 12” after Campbell complained publicly about the conference and its television partners possibly moving this year’s Texas Tech football game against Houston to a Friday night.
Texas Tech was one of only three Big 12 teams that didn’t play a regular-season game on a Friday night last year. Campbell says that’s going to happen this coming season, and he doesn’t like it.
Campbell posted this week on social media the Big 12 and Fox Sports are looking to move the Texas Tech home game against Houston from Sept. 19, the Saturday on which it’s currently slotted, to Sept. 18. He began his objection by writing that “Friday Night Lights are sacred in the Great State of Texas!”
He also took Yormark to task.
“I heard about it through the (Tech football) staff up here and our administration that it was being discussed,” Campbell told the Avalanche-Journal on Tuesday, March 31. “They (TV partners) have the draft or whatever, and the conference doesn’t want to really acknowledge it, but they do have an ability to influence those decisions. They just chose not to because they were chasing ratings — which I do understand on one hand, but on the other hand, high school football is important in the state of Texas.
“We’ve got a road game the week before. It’s not an ideal situation for us, and … I think our conference should protect us more than they did.”
Campbell is a former Texas Tech offensive lineman, one of six founding members of The Matador Club, a collective that’s supported Tech athletics, and an increasingly prominent voice nationally on college-sports issues.
The Big 12 released the 2026 schedule on Jan. 21 with the usual caveats that TV partners ESPN, Fox Sports and TNT Sports would make their selections for the first three weeks of the season at a later date and that some Saturday games could be moved to Friday or other special dates.
Though there’s been no announcement from the Big 12, Campbell said he thinks the Tech-Houston game moving to Friday is a fait accompli.
“I think it’s done,” he said, “unless they come back and they figure something else out. I think Yormark could have gone to bat for us and didn’t, because, again, he wanted the ratings. I think Fox is not concerned about any individual team. I think, again, they also want ratings, so they picked the game that’s going to give them the most viewership for that weekend.”
Last season, Tech went 12-2, won the Big 12 championship, and was a College Football Playoff quarterfinalist. Houston capped a 10-3 season by beating LSU in the Texas Bowl.
Brett Yormark says Big 12 presidents, ADs approved 12 non-Saturday games a year
Asked on Wednesday, April 1, for a response to Campbell’s comments on social media and to the Avalanche-Journal, the Big 12 issued a statement from Yormark to the A-J.
“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.”
There were seven FBS regular-season games, including two involving Big 12 teams, played on Friday nights in Texas last season: Auburn-Baylor and UNLV-Sam Houston State on Aug. 29, Colorado-Houston on Sept. 12, South Florida-North Texas on Oct. 10, Memphis-Rice on Oct. 31 and Texas A&M-Texas and Temple-North Texas on Nov. 28.
Texas Tech football would face short week after West Coast trip
Texas Tech plays Oregon State on Sept. 12 in Corvallis, Oregon, so the prospect of Tech-Houston six days later puts the Red Raiders on a short week coming out of a trip to the Pacific time zone.
“We’ll deal with it,” Campbell said. “We’ll play on Monday night if we have to, but I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the kids or our program or even the Big 12 for us to be playing that [Houston] game that night.
“We’ll get back [from Corvallis, Oregon] at 4 o’clock in the morning on Sunday, you know? I mean, they’ll probably have to prepare [for Houston] the week before.”
Kirby Hocutt tells local ADs of potential conflict with Houston at Texas Tech football game
Tech athletics director Kirby Hocutt has advised ADs from Lubbock ISD, Lubbock-Cooper, and Frenship schools that the Red Raiders might play on Friday, Sept. 18, a Tech athletics spokesman said, in case they want to adjust their own games in response.
Yormark’s desire to have a supply of non-Saturday Big 12 games has put him at odds with high school coaches since the beginning of his tenure. He expressed it at the 2023 Big 12 media days when he was starting his second year on the job.
“It’s very hot during the summer months, especially in the (early) fall,” Yormark said in July 2023. “So playing on a Friday night versus Saturday morning does have its benefits. And when you think about the tonnage of college football on air on a Saturday provides a lot of opportunity for us to kind of build our profile on a Friday night.”
At the Texas High School Coaches Association annual convention in July 2024, THSCA executive director Joe Martin said the THSCA objected to Friday night college games, specifically mentioning a Houston-TCU game that fall.
Dave Campbell’s Texas Football quoted Martin as saying, “We are asking all conference commissioners to refrain from scheduling Friday night games during the 11-week Texas high school football regular season. We feel Friday nights should be about the communities involved with Texas high school football.”
The Big 12 conference schedule starts Sept. 12 with Arizona at Brigham Young. Houston-Texas Tech and Arizona State-Kansas are the two Big 12 openers on Sept. 19. Attractive nonconference games that day include two Big 12 opponents playing teams that finished 11-3 last year — West Virginia-Virginia and Kansas State-Tulane — and a Power Four Conference matchup, Colorado-Northwestern.
Last year, Texas Tech and Iowa State were the only two Big 12 teams that played all their regular-season games on Saturdays.
Of the other Big 12 schools, Houston played three Friday games, and Kansas, Colorado, Arizona and Arizona State had two apiece. Four teams played one Thursday game apiece: Central Florida, Oklahoma State, Houston and Cincinnati. TCU opened on a Monday night at North Carolina.
Regarding his social-media post, Campbell said, “I meant what I said. I told Brett Yormark I meant what I said. I’m not going to back down from it. I don’t think, especially in the state of Texas, two Texas teams should be playing on Friday night. It’s different than it is in other parts of the country.”