Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, Texas Tech super-booster Cody Campbell in public spat over TV scheduling

It's a truism of college football that everyone wants to be paid a billion dollars a year (approximate) for the privilege of putting those games on television, but they also want every home game at 7 p.m. and every road game at 3:30. And definitely only on Saturdays.

The latest example came Monday, when Texas Tech former offensive lineman/board of regents chairman/super-booster/would-be college sports reformer Cody Campbell tweeted his displeasure that the Red Raiders' Sept. 19 home game with Houston is apparently moving to Friday, Sept. 18. The TV networks won't release their early-season selections until next month, but word has evidently made it to Lubbock that the Houston game is moving a day forward.

"Friday Night Lights are sacred in the Great State of Texas! It is absolutely absurd that the Big 12 and Fox would consider scheduling Texas Tech and Houston on a Friday night," Campbell tweeted, incorrectly listing the game as being in October. "I know that Brett Yormark is not a native Texan, but he's been here long enough to know better! Come on, man!"

Reached by the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Yormark snapped back. 

"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."

The disconnect here -- and it's not unique to Tech, but it does seem to happen regularly with Fox games -- is that what Texas Tech views as a punishment, Fox views as a reward. Yormark noted that the Big 12's Friday night games out-rated its Saturday offerings by 64 percent. An in-state battle of teams that won a combined 22 games a year ago is the top Big 12 offering that week, and moving it to Friday gets Cougars-Red Raiders off a day when it would otherwise compete with Florida State-Alabama and the titanic LSU-Ole Miss match. 

Frankly, if Texas Tech has a gripe, it's that Houston-Tech is not in line for the Big Noon window on a day when Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State and Oregon all host Group of 6 teams. Then again, 11 a.m. kicks historically haven't been popular in Big 12 country, either. 

Texas Tech and Iowa State were the only Big 12 games not to play weeknight regular-season games in 2025. Fox has not kept it a secret that its strategy for carving out real estate on the college football TV landscape is to try to win Friday night and early Saturday afternoon. The Big 12 and its presidents knew that when they took the network's money. 

"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," Campbell told the paper.