What to hope for when the 2024 Texas Tech football schedule is released
Texas Tech should lobby for a home finale
The college football regular season usually ends on Thanksgiving weekend. That has made it hard for Tech to fill Jones Stadium for regular-season finales given that the vast majority of the students live multiple hours away from Lubbock and are usually at home that weekend.
That's why the Red Raiders went through a stretch from 2011 to 2019 where the regular season ended either against Baylor in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area or at Texas in Austin. During that time, the program was happy to end the season away from home because the leadership believed that a Thanksgiving weekend game would be sparsely attended at best.
That mindset has changed in recent years, though. In fact, in 2022, Tech hosted Oklahoma on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a 51-48 win that was officially attended by 51,126 people.
In 2024, Tech will again hope to end the regular season in Lubbock because the school wants to pair that game with a home basketball contest against Texas A&M, already scheduled for November 29th, the day after Thanksgiving. Thus, an intriguing home football game on Saturday would give fans reason to either stay on the South Plains or come back early to witness one of the truly great sports weekends the university has ever enjoyed.
This would be a perfect place in the schedule for Colorado to come back to Lubbock for the first time since 2007. That home game will be the marquee contest of the season regardless of when it happens being as it will bring CU head coach Deion Sanders and his traveling circus to Jones Stadium.
It is assumed by many that the Big 12 will in fact do Tech a solid and give the university a home football game on November 30. That's likely why the school scheduled the basketball game against Texas A&M for the day before.
However, I don't trust the conference to ever throw the Red Raiders a bone. So until we know for sure that Tech will have a game at home on the final Saturday of the regular season, we can't take anything for granted. What's more, let's hope that if it does work out that way, the opponent will be one that will be intriguing and meaningful.