Texas Tech football: Kickoff vs. Oklahoma State set for 11 a.m.

Sunday, the Big 12 announced that the Texas Tech football team’s game against Oklahoma State will kick off at 11 a.m. this Saturday.

For the first time this season, the Texas Tech football team will kick off a game at 11 a.m. when they head to head to Stillwater this Saturday to face the Oklahoma State Cowboys. That news was revealed by the Big 12 Sunday as the game had been flexed to the six-day window allowing the conference’s television partners to wait for the outcome of this past weekend’s OSU vs. Oklahoma game before setting this weekend’s kickoff times. The game will be nationally broadcast on FOX.

Though it is not as significant of a factor in 2020 given that stadiums are not being filled to capacity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, playing at 11 a.m. on the road is always preferable. But it has been a calendar year since Tech kicked off at 11 am in an opponent’s stadium as they last did so on November 29, 2019, against the Longhorns.

This year, the Red Raiders will be looking to extend a modest two-game winning streak against the Cowboys by winning at Boone Pickens Stadium for the second-straight time. In 2018, Alan Bowman made his first career Big 12 and first career road start and helped lead Tech to a 41-17 victory over the no. 15 Cowboys.

One of the surprises that night was that the Red Raiders were able to pound away on the ground to the tune of 224 yards and 3 TDs. Leading the way was Demarcus Felton who had 130 yards and a pair of scores in what was his best game as a Red Raider.

But wins in Stillwater have been rare for the Texas Tech football program. Tech has emerged from a trip to Oklahoma State with a win only four times since 1989 and the 2018 win ended a 7-game road losing streak in the series for the good guys.

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This year, Oklahoma State has been in contention for the Big 12 title all season. But after starting the year 4-0, they’ve dropped two of their last three games and now, they will need some help to qualify for the conference title game.

Iowa State and Oklahoma are the teams that would meet in Arlington, Texas if the Big 12 title game was to be held this weekend. Being as the Cowboys have played both already, they no longer have their destiny in their own hands.

Tech would love nothing more than to add to the Cowboy’s woes this weekend. Coming off of a last-second win over Baylor prior to this weekend’s bye, the vibe around the Red Raider football building has to be as high as it has been all season.

But winning consecutive conference games has been rare for the Red Raiders in recent years. In fact, the last time it happened was in October of 2018 when then-head coach Kliff Kingsbury led his team to wins over TCU and Kansas in back-to-back games. Prior to that, you have to go back to the end of the 2015 season, when Tech beat Kansas State and Texas consecutively, to find another set of back-to-back Big 12 wins for Tech.

Hopefully, that is a trend that Matt Wells and Co. can put an end to this weekend. And hopefully, it will be a sleepy atmosphere in Stillwater thanks to the Cowboys’ recent struggles and an early kick-off time.