ESPN had a simple graphic on Thursday night, and it still managed to underline the same old problem for Texas Tech and the Big 12.
During the Syracuse-Pitt ACC game, the network flashed a list of the weekend’s biggest matchups. Six games made the cut, and all but one were set to air on ESPN, ESPN2, or ABC. The outlier was Texas Tech’s Friday night home game against Houston, which will be on FOX.
The part that stood out wasn’t just that Texas Tech was the only game outside the ESPN family of networks. It was that the Red Raiders’ game was the one listed with the wrong day.
On the graphic, Houston at Texas Tech appeared as a Saturday game, even though it is tomorrow night. The ESPN game shown on the same graphic was listed correctly.
That mistake quickly became the latest example, at least in the eyes of Texas Tech supporters, of how the network treats the Big 12 as an afterthought.
One of the premier Big 12 games of the season, Houston at Texas Tech, is tomorrow night on FOX.
So here’s a graphic that just aired on ESPN showing the game on Saturday, while conveniently showing tomorrow’s ESPN game correctly.
Great work guys. pic.twitter.com/R0U0n9XE3E
- Tyler Dreiling (@TylerDreiling) September 18, 2026
The bigger issue, though, goes well beyond one sloppy graphic. ESPN is still the biggest force in college football media, and that means its coverage shapes how teams and conferences are viewed.
The SEC gets priority because of its huge deal with the network. The ACC benefits too.
The Big Ten, with its standing in the sport, gets plenty of attention as well. The Big 12, on the other hand, keeps getting pushed to the side.
That matters because college football runs on perception. Rankings, playoff conversations, and public opinion all feed into one another. When ESPN spends most of its weekly airtime hyping teams from the SEC, Big Ten, and ACC, those programs get a built-in boost in how they are seen by fans and, in turn, by the people helping shape the playoff field.
The source of the frustration is simple enough: ESPN and ABC carry seven of the 11 College Football Playoff games, so the network has a clear financial stake in how teams are presented. In that setup, the complaint is that the Big 12 keeps getting less than equal treatment while the leagues tied more closely to ESPN get the spotlight.
The result, according to the source article, is an uphill climb for the Big 12. The conference remains the only one of the four major leagues to have yet to earn two teams in a 12-team playoff field.
Even the ACC, which the article says is no better than the Big 12 in quality, got Clemson and SMU into the 2024 playoff field. BYU, despite beating SMU in Dallas and finishing 10-2 in the regular season, was left out.
For Texas Tech and the rest of the Big 12, the path forward is blunt: keep winning and hope the rest of the sport starts to look at the conference differently. Until then, the complaint will linger that ESPN’s coverage keeps giving the Big 12 less than its due.
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Satterfield is not alone in that spotlight, either. Joey McGuire at Texas Tech, Lance Leipold at Kansas and Kalani Sitake at BYU are all dealing with similar scrutiny heading into their own games, a reminder that in this stretch of the calendar, wins can calm things down fast and the wrong result can make the conversation a lot louder. [Read more 🡒]