Week 1! It’s here! College football is back! And we’re about to witness Joey McGuire and the Texas Tech football team welcoming the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions to town for the start of what could be a truly fascinating Texas Tech football season.
During Week 0, we got to see a few Big 12 teams play. The Kansas State Wildcats couldn’t find a way to get past the Iowa State Cyclones in Dublin, Ireland. Meanwhile, the Kansas Jayhawks went out and just smoothly captured a season opening win at home against Fresno State.
But we didn’t get to see any Texas Tech football last week.
That changes this week. McGuire and the Red Raiders will start the season by facing the aforementioned Golden Lions in Jones AT&T Stadium.
And ESPN’s number crunchin’ machines seem to think the Red Raiders will win this one. Which, you know, I do too, for what that’s worth.
ESPN Analytics MAtchup Predictor gives the Texas Tech Red Raiders a 99 percent chance of beating the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions
That’s right. A 99 percent chance of winning.
That means that Texas Tech shouldn’t have too much trouble with. I mean, theoretically, we can talk about how Arkansas-Pine Bluff does technically have a chance of winning this game. But it’s small. Just a sliver of a chance.
This is a game that Texas Tech should win and the Red Raiders should win with ease. But, I mean, technically speaking, that probably should have been the case for McGuire and his Texas Tech football team to start the season last year against Abilene Christian.
And we saw how close and terrifying that game was for the Red Raiders a season ago.
Now we just get to sit back and wait and see how Texas Tech handles this one. If this is going to be anything close to a special season for the Red Raiders, then McGuire’s football team will need to absolutely dominate in this matchup. They’ll need to clear this hurdle without breaking a sweat. We’ll see how it plays out.