Texas Tech is again undefeated halfway through the regular season. The Red Raiders have just gotten to 6-0 a bit differently a year after they won their first Big 12 Conference championship and made the College Football Playoff.
Not all of their wins have been lopsided this time, though the No. 8 Red Raiders seem to be settling in with quarterback Will Hammond, a trio of linebackers who have returned interceptions for touchdowns and a bunch of new players on defense after six of their school-record nine NFL draft picks last April were from that side of the ball. They are coming off a 53-25 win over Arizona State, the only Big 12 team to beat them last year.
“Our guys just keep responding, and that’s what you’re supposed to do,” coach Joey McGuire said. “They just keep finding ways to win.”
McGuire, like his pal Kalani Sitake at No. 2 BYU, constantly preaches to his players about focusing on themselves and one game at a time.
Yes, that well-worn cliché is used by pretty much every coach, but that simple message has gotten through to the Red Raiders and Cougars so far in this chaotic season. The No. 1 team has lost to an unranked team on back-to-back Saturdays, and last weekend five of the top seven teams lost on the same day for the first time in the AP poll's 90-year history.
“We have too much in front of us,” McGuire said. “We still are nowhere close to the team that we can be, and so to focus on anything other than the football and going 1-0, no matter who we’re playing, I think would start taking away from what we’re trying to do.”
BYU, which just won at home over then-No. 2 Notre Dame, is 6-0 for the third year in a row. The Cougars were the Big 12 runner-up last season when their only two losses were to Texas Tech.
No. 10 Utah also is undefeated, giving the Big 12 three 6-0 teams for the first time since 2015, and half of the remaining undefeated FBS teams. The others are No. 1 Miami, No. 9 UCLA and James Madison.
“Really excited about the progress we’ve made as a team,” said Sitake, who was asked about BYU’s six-spot jump and highest ranking since its 1984 national championship season.
“I never cared about it before, so why would I start now,” he responded. “We’re talking about humble and hungry. Talking about rankings isn’t gonna get us there. So we are halfway through the season.”
Sophomore quarterback Bear Bachmeier and the Cougars are winning without injured running back LJ Martin, last season’s AP Big 12 offensive player of the year. He sustained a lower-body injury in the first quarter at TCU on Oct. 3 and could be out until mid-November.
The Red Raiders set a school record last season with 12 wins, those coming by an average margin of nearly 35 points and none closer than 22. Their only regular-season loss was 26-22 at Arizona State, then they had another six-game winning streak before the CFP quarterfinal loss to Oregon in the Orange Bowl.
They won only 33-10 in their opener over Football Championship Subdivision team Abilene Christian, and were down at Oregon State before two touchdowns in the final 6 1/2 minutes. Their Big 12 opener ended 28-26 after No. 14 Houston was inches short on a 2-point conversion try in the final minute of its only loss. John Curry's interception in the end zone for a TD was part of a 29-7 win at Colorado after trailing late in the third quarter.
“I keep saying it, everybody keeps asking me and they’re wanting us to look this way and this way. I don’t care how we look, just win. Just win,” McGuire said.
Fourth-year starting linebacker Ben Roberts' pick-6 opened the scoring Saturday before Tech scored on seven consecutive drives for a 43-10 halftime lead over Arizona State, the 2024 Big 12 champion that gave had given up 55 points at home to Baylor, which then fell 17-6 to TCU.
Hammond, who tore his right ACL last October, has 1,334 yards and six touchdowns passing. He has 68 pass attempts over 2 1/2 games without an interception since three in the second quarter of a 49-14 win over Sam Houston, a game in which Tech transfer linebacker Austin Romaine became the first FBS player since 2013 to return two interceptions for TDs on consecutive passes.
The only undefeated teams in the Big 12's previous 30 seasons were Nebraska in 1997, Oklahoma in 2000 and Texas in 2005.
TCU in 2022 and Kansas State in 1998 are the only current Big 12 teams to get through a regular season without a conference loss. Both lost the conference championship game in overtime.
BYU and Utah play their annual Holy War game on Nov. 7 in Salt Lake City. Texas Tech won’t play either in the regular season.
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