Let me tell you something that’s been gnawing at me for weeks: the way college football’s scheduling dance is rigged against mid-tier programs. Texas Tech’s struggle to land a single marquee non-conference game in 2026 isn’t just a scheduling hiccup—it’s a masterclass in institutional self-preservation. When Joey McGuire says USC, Texas A&M, and NC State all said no to playing the Red Raiders, what he’s really revealing is how the power conferences weaponize their own prestige to maintain an unspoken hierarchy.
Personally, I think this is where the College Football Playoff’s strength-of-schedule metric becomes a farce. The system is designed to reward teams that play the toughest games, but what happens when the ‘toughest’ teams refuse to play anyone outside their own echo chamber? The SEC and Big Ten dominate the schedule rankings not because their teams are objectively better, but because they’ve created a scheduling cartel that ensures no one outside their leagues can challenge them. It’s like a tennis tournament where only the top two seeds get to play each other—except here, the rest of the field is literally excluded from the conversation.
What makes this particularly fascinating is how the Big 12 is being weaponized as a scapegoat. Texas Tech’s weaker schedule isn’t a product of their own incompetence—it’s a direct result of the SEC/Big Ten’s refusal to engage. And yet, when the playoff committee evaluates their resume, they’ll be penalized for the sins of others. This raises a deeper question: Is the CFP selection process even fair when the most dominant teams control the narrative through scheduling? A detail that I find especially interesting is how schools like USC and Texas A&M can claim they’re ‘competing against the best’ while simultaneously avoiding teams like Texas Tech, which are trying to climb the ladder.
Let’s talk about the Brandon Sorsby scandal for a second. McGuire’s team is still reeling from that mess, and it’s probably a factor in why other programs are hesitant to schedule them. But here’s the thing: if you’re going to punish a program for a single misstep, shouldn’t you also hold the conferences accountable for creating a system where one mistake can derail years of progress? The irony is that Texas Tech is investing millions to build a playoff contender, yet they’re being shut out by the same powerhouses that complain about the Big 12’s ‘weakness.’
From my perspective, this whole situation smells like a PR nightmare waiting to happen. Cody Campbell’s threats of lawsuits against the playoff committee are performative, but they’re also a symptom of a larger problem: the lack of accountability in college football’s power structure. If the Big Ten and SEC want to be taken seriously as the ‘best conferences,’ they need to stop using scheduling as a tool to prop up their own egos. The real test of their strength isn’t how many top-10 teams they play—they should be proving it by facing teams like Texas Tech, not avoiding them.
What this really suggests is that the entire playoff system is built on a house of cards. Until the scheduling rules change to prevent this kind of gatekeeping, we’ll keep seeing the same teams at the top while others are left to rot. And if you take a step back and think about it, this isn’t just about football—it’s about how power structures in sports (and beyond) use exclusion as a form of control. The next time someone tells you Texas Tech isn’t ‘good enough’ to play against the elite, ask them: Who exactly decided that? Because I’m guessing it wasn’t the players on the field.
