Colorado Buffaloes vs Texas Tech Red Raiders Rivalry
Big 12 Rivalry
Colorado Buffaloes vs Texas Tech Red Raiders is the kind of college football matchup that splits living rooms and group chats. Whenever these two meet, the records get thrown out and the only thing that matters is who walks away with the bragging rights.
Both programs call the Big 12 home, so this isn't just pride on the line — it's conference standing, head-to-head tiebreakers, and a direct say in who plays for a title. Every recruiting cycle, every transfer-portal swing, and every Saturday result feeds the same argument. When the Buffaloes face the Red Raiders, the debate is never settled for long — last year's result just sets up next year's argument.
Below, Colorado Buffaloes and Texas Tech Red Raiders fans make their cases in real time. Stake your claim, drop your prediction, and talk your trash before kickoff.
You kids today with your RPOs and your Air Raid spread. You don't know what real football is. I was watching some old film from the 1983 season, back when Coach Dykes was still an assistant and we ran the veer option out of the wishbone. We had a quarterback who would take the snap, read the defensive end, and either pitch it to the tailback or keep it himself. There was no throwing the ball 60 times a game. You lined up and you ran the option until the defense proved it could stop it. That was football. That was Texas Tech football before everybody got fancy.
The option offense was beautiful in its simplicity. It was about discipline, timing, and toughness. You had to be able to take a hit and get right back up. You had to execute the mesh point perfectly or you'd get blown up in the backfield. That's where you built character. These portal kids who jump ship the second they don't start would never survive a single practice in the old option system. They'd be crying to their agent after the first spring scrimmage. We didn't need five-star recruits to run the option. We needed tough kids from West Texas who loved football.
Wait so this Brendan Sorsby gambling situation has me thinking about something completely different. Back in the Spike Dykes days we had walk ons who would run through a brick wall for a scholarship and a chance to play on Saturday. Guys who worked the scout team for three years before sniffing the two deep. Now we got quarterbacks getting treatment for gambling addictions and the whole program's future hanging on an NCAA ruling. You think a walk on from the 1995 squad would have been caught ...
You want to know what kills me about this Brendan Sorsby situation? We used to have players who went to the Alamo Bowl and actually remembered the trip. Now we have quarterbacks getting treatment for gambling addictions because the same phones that run the playbook also run DraftKings. I remember when the biggest off-field distraction was whether we could get enough guys to the Independence Bowl without missing final exams. This sport has changed and not for the better.
You watch Texas and Oklahoma leave the Big 12 for the SEC and then watch ESPN rank portal classes and tell me this sport makes any sense anymore. We used to have a conference where you knew who your enemies were and you played them every year. Now it is just a free agent free-...
Just saw that ESPN piece on the five-star recruits and where they're going and I had to sit down. Twenty-one five-star players in this class and you can count on one hand how many are even looking at programs west of the Mississippi that aren't named Oregon or Texas. Back in the late 80s when we had guys like Rodney Allison and the old Southwest Conference days, we didn't have this star ranking nonsense but we knew who could play. We'd go watch a kid from Plainview or Odessa and you could tell in the first quarter if he had it.
Now every single five-star is going to the same six programs and the rest of us are left fighting over portal scraps. Speaking of which, I saw Oklahoma State brougth in FIFTY transfers. Fifty. That's not building a program, that's running a hotel for mercenaries. Eric Morris is a good coach, I remember watching him at that little school up in Canyon when he was tearing it up, but you cannot tell me fifty new guys in one offseason is how you build something lasting. Remember when Coach Spike Dykes would bring in a junior college kid maybe once every other year and we'd act like he was a celebrity? Now it's the entire roster every December.
The portal killed something that mattered. You used to watch a kid grow from a freshman who couldn't find the weight room to a senior who could bench press a truck. You knew their names, you knew their families, you saw them at the United supermarket on 19th Street. Now they're here for eight months and gone. We got a quarterback situation right now that's a complete mess and instead of developing the guys in the building we're scrolling through the portal like it's Amazon. NIL and the portal combined have turned college football into a rental car agency and I'm tired of pretending otherwise.
Watching this draft weekend and seeing all these programs get their guys drafted in the first two rounds, then I look at our spring practice depth chart and I just shake my head. People forget what Spike Dykes built here in the 90s with a bunch of overlooked Texas kids who played four years together and knew the system inside and out. We never had five-star recruiting classes but we had continuity and toughness. Now we are trying to compete with Oregon and Texas in the NIL era where they just buy the ESPN top 100 every year. The new revenue sharing cap at 20.5 million is just going to let the rich programs get richer while we scramble for leftovers. I miss the days when you could build a program on development and loyalty instead of who has the biggest bag.
Saw that ESPN poll about the 2027 draft quarterbacks and not a single mention of our guy. Nobody cares about the QB battle in Lubbock right now. Reminds me of the old Southwest Conference days when we'd roll into Austin with a nobody at quarterback and somehow leave with a win because the kid had grit. These national outlets don't even know who's taking snaps for us until September.
Not a single Red Raider on Mel Kiper's final Big Board. Zero. In the 80s and 90s we might not have had five-star croots either, but we had Gabe Rivera, Zach Thomas, and guys who played with their hair on fire. Now we just watch other teams' draft picks shine while we rebuild...
Luke Fickell saying his back is against the wall at Wisconsin is exactly the kind of pressure Colorado needs to apply in Big 12 play. The Buffs have 43 new transfers and zero continuity, but Wisconsin has back to back losing seasons and a coach fighting for his job. Give me th...
Just saw Mel Kiper's draft board and not a single Red Raider in the top 150. Not one. Reminds me of the early 2000s when we couldn't get a guy drafted to save our lives until Wes Welker came along and reminded everybody what Lubbock produced. You know what the difference was back then? We reruited kids from small Texas towns who had something to prove. Kids who grew up working on farms and playing three sports. Now we're chasing the same five-star transfers as everybody else and losing the identity that made us dangerous. Coach Spike Dykes would drive his pickup truck to some dusty town in West Texas and find a quarterback nobody else wanted and turn him into a winner. That's how you build a program, not by swiping right on the portal.
Winning a bidding war for a quarterback is the exact opposite of the toughness we used to build in Lubbock. I remember watching Robert Hall and Zebbie Lethridge earn their stripes through spring battles, not by having the highest NIL offer. This whole process feels like buying a mercenary, not developing a leader who will bleed for the program. True grit is forged in competition, not in a bank transfer.
Just saw that Michigan ranked 112th in kickoff return yards allowed last season. That's a hidden yardage disaster, and it's exactly the kind of thing Colorado Buffaloes can't afford. Their special teams unit gave up 23.5 yards per return, which is bottom 10 nationally. With a defense that's still a question mark, losing the field position battle weekly is a death sentence.
This new spread offense obsession has completely forgotten the beauty of a well-run option. I remember watching the service academies carve up defenses with precision and toughness, somethiing you just don't see anymore. It was about discipline and execution, not just finding the fastest guy in the portal to run a jet sweep. The game has lost an art form.
Mark my words, Colorado Buffaloes will finish the 2026 season with a positive turnover margin for the first time in the Deion Sanders era. Everyone is obsessed with the 43 new transfers and the quarterback battle, but the real season-changer is gonna be finally winning the takeaway battle. They were a dismal minus-8 last year, ranking 102nd nationally. You cannot win in the Big 12 giving the ball away like that.
The entire defensive philosophy has to be built around creating havoc. Last season they forced only 14 turnovers total. That's pathetic. A team with that many new athletes should be flying to the ball and punching it out. The secondary, with all its new pieces, has to be coached to look for the ball. It's a mindset shift more than a talent issue.
If they can just get to even, it changes everything. Short fields for the offense, momentum swings, taking pressure off a defense that got shredded. This isn't about one player. It's about a program-wide emphasis that has been completely absent. Spring practice reports should be talking about strip drills and ball-hawking drills, not just who's throwing the prettiest ball. Until they fix this, they're just collecting talent without a purpose. The path to eight wins starts with winning the turnover battle. It's that simple.
Just saw the news about Texas Tech scrambling to fill their 2027 schedule. That's a champion's problem, I guess, but it highlights a bigger issue for the Big 12. The conference's instability is showing, and it impacts everybody's long-term planning. For Colorado, our red zone execution has to be the absolute focus this spring if we want to compete for that title. Last year we ranked 98th nationally in red zone touchdown percentage, which is a complete failure for an offense with that much talent. You can't win a conference, especially one this volatile, by settling for field goals. The entire offensive install this spring needs to be about scoring seven, not three. If this massive new group can't fix that, the schedule won't matter.
Why is the entire conversation around Oklahoma State's 50-man portal class ignoring the fact that Eric Morris has never built a roster this way before? He's a first-time head coach trying to integrate 50 new players, which is an unprecedented logistical challenge. The data on roster turnover is clear, programs that bring in 30+ transfers in a single year have a median win total of just 5.8 the following season. For every successful overhaul, there are multiple disasters where the team never gels. Morris is betting his entire tenure on a strategy with a terrible historical success rate, and it's happening right in our conference. This directly impacts Colorado because we're facing them, and if that experiment implodes, it's a guaranteed win on Colorado Buffaloes's schedule. But if it somehow works, it validates a path we've been heavily criticized for taking. Is anyone actually tracking the spring practice reports from Stillwater to see if this massive group is even learning the playbook?
This new era where you can bring in 50 transfers like Oklahoma State is doing is a complete farce and I will die on this hill. It reminds me of the 2008 team that went 11-2, a group that grew together through adversity, not a bunch of hired guns. What are you even building? There's no program identity, just a collection of jerseys. The portal has turned coaches into used car salesmen and players into free agents with zero allegiance. We used to develop kids like Wes Welker over four years, now if a freshman doesn't start by week three he's gone. This isn't football, it's fantasy football with real people, and it's gutting the soul of the sport. Look at Colorado's 43-man class, it's a circus.
Just saw that list of NFL draft superlatives and not a single Red Raider on it. Not one. That tells you everything you need to know about where we are. We used to send guys to the league who could play. Zach Thomas, Wes Welker, Michael Crabtree. Those guys defined toughness. Now we’re just hoping a five-star recruit like this Sweeney kid can stick around for two years before he gets a better NIL offer from some SEC school.
This whole thing reminds me of the old Southwest Conference days, when a rivalry game meant something. You knew you were going to battle with Texas or Texas A&M every year, and those guys hated you for four quarters. Now? The portal killed any sense of team identity. How are you supposed to build a hatred for a guy who was your teammate last spring? The game has lost its soul.
We get a kid like Sweeney to commit, and all I can think is, great, let’s see if he’s still here for the 2027 season opener. The loyalty is gone. The rivalries are gone. Everything is just a transaction now. I miss when beating the Aggies on Thanksgiving meant you owned the state for a year. You can’t manufacture that history, and you sure can’t buy it with a bag of cash.
Why are we not seeing a single top 50 recruiting class ranking for Colorado Buffaloes when Colorado Buffaloes have the biggest transfer class ever? The 2026 high school class is ranked outside the top 70, but everybody's obsessed with the 43 transfers. That long-term roster foundation is still missing.
Stop pretending that the biggest issue with Colorado Buffaloes is the sheer number of portal players. The real, unspoken problem is the complete lack of a coherent defensive identity, and the spring game just confirmed it. Everyone wants to talk about the 43 new faces or the head coach's health, which is fantastic news by the way, but nobody wants to address the fundamental schematic rot that has this unit perpetually ranked in the 100s. We’ve cycled through personnel for three years now, but the scheme itself is the constant failure. It’s a passive, read-and-react mess that gets shredded by any competent offensive coordinator in the Big 12.
Look at the data from last season, because it tells the whole story. The defense finished 124th nationally in yards per play allowed at 6.8. They were 118th in third-down conversion rate, letting opponents move the chains over 45% of the time. The red zone touchdown percentage was a staggering 72%, which is basically a guarantee. These aren't talent problems alone, these are systemic failures. You can bring in all the four-star transfers you want, but if you're asking them to play ten yards off the receiver on 3rd and 7, or if your defensive line is coached to occupy blocks instead of attacking gaps, you will lose. Every single time.
The spring game footage, what little they showed, was more of the same. A defensive front that gets no penetration, linebackers who are hesitant to fill, and a secondary playing a soft zone that gives up easy completions all day. This isn't a "gimmick" 3-3-5 like some schools run with aggression. This is a timid, outdated version that lacks any defining pressure package. Where are the simulated blitzes? Where is the pattern-matching coverage to take away the quick game? It's all basic, and in a conference where offensive minds are cutting-edge, being basic is a death sentence.
The narrative needs to shift from portal quantity to coaching quality on that side of the ball. You can't just assemble parts and hope they figure it out. They need a philosophy. Are we an attacking, single-gap defense that forces negative plays? The havoc rate has been bottom-20 for two years running, so clearly not. Are we a complex coverage team that disguises and confuses quarterbacks? The completion percentage against says otherwise. Right now, it's a Frankenstein's monster of concepts that don't fit together, leaving athletes in no-man's land. Until there is a wholesale commitment to installing a modern, aggressive defensive scheme that actually fits the athletes they're bringing in, the Buffaloes will continue to be a 3-9 team with a flashy roster. The talent influx is meaningless if the playbook is holding them back.