Texas Tech football: Kirk Herbstreit picks Red Raiders over Oregon on GameDay
The Texas Tech football team isn’t always featured in the weekly picks on ESPN’s College GameDay. That’s because the Red Raiders haven’t been in a ton of high-profile games in recent years given the program’s struggles.
However, today’s matchup with Oregon has the attention of the nation and was included as one of the games that the ESPN College GameDay crew picked. Not surprisingly, only one panelist went with the Red Raiders, but it was perhaps the most knowledgeable of the group who leaned toward Texas Tech.
Kirk Herbstreit, the lead college football analyst for ESPN/ABC and perhaps the most respected voice in the sport went against the grain and picked Texas Tech to upset the Ducks. The rest of the crew, Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee, Lee Corso, and guest picker Joe Namath, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, all went with the Ducks.
That’s not surprising given that Oregon is the ranked team coming off of an 81-7 win in their opener while Tech is unranked and trying to rebound from a 35-33 loss at Wyoming. It is telling, though, that Herbstreit did give the Red Raiders the nod. After all, no one on that show is more plugged in than the former Ohio State QB.
As far as other games of intrigue today, all panelists picked Iowa to beat Iowa State. The same goes for Wisconsin over Washington State on the road. The group was also in consensus that Colorado would take down Nebraska in Boulder.
Meanwhile, Corso was the only expert to pick Miami to beat visiting Texas A&M. In the Notre Dame vs. N.C. State game in Raleigh, Herbstreit was again the lone dissenting voice picking the Wolfpack to beat the Fighting Irish.
The panel was split on the game of the day, Texas at Alabama. Howard and Corso like the Horns while McAfee and Namath are rolling with the Tide. Herbstreit didn’t make a pick given that he will be broadcasting that game this evening.
Texas Tech will be looking to avoid its first 0-2 start since 1990. The Red Raiders have also won their last 23 home openers.
Of course, most of those games in that streak have come against FCS or Group of 5 programs. Oregon is a much different animal.
It will be a long day of football before this 6 p.m. Central kickoff. However, Red Raider fans are hopeful that it will be worth the wait. They also hope that Herbstreit knows what he’s talking about.