Texas Tech is on the verge of its first 10-win season in 17 years and is chasing a high seed in the College Football Playoff as it prepares for Saturday’s Big 12 game against UCF in Lubbock.
The No. 6 Red Raiders (9-1, 6-1 Big 12) are in the driver’s seat in the Big 12 race after a 29-7 home victory over then-No. 7 BYU last weekend.
Texas Tech’s final two regular-season games are against teams with a combined 3-10 mark in Big 12 play: the Knights (4-5, 1-5) and West Virginia (4-6, 2-5).
The Red Raiders also arguably feature the top defensive player in the nation in linebacker Jacob Rodriguez but that label needs some adjusting in the eyes of Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire.
He’s thinking Rodriguez should be a Heisman Trophy finalist.
“I’m 54 years old, I’ve grown up a football fanatic, I’ve probably watched every Heisman that I can remember,” McGuire said. “But guys, the Heisman is given to the best football player. It’s not given to the best quarterback. They’ve got awards for that.
“And you can’t say that Jacob Rodriguez, at his position, is not playing at that level, at an elite level, as good as any guy in the country.”
One famous Texas Tech product emphatically agrees, a quarterback named Patrick Mahomes.
“Get him to New York! @HeismanTrophy,” Mahomes said while he retweeted a picture of Rodriguez and his game stats after the rout of BYU.
Rodriguez was all over the field against the Cougars and had 14 tackles, an interception and a fumble recovery.
Rodriguez leads the nation with seven forced fumbles and also has 91 tackles, 9.5 stops for loss, three interceptions and two fumbles recoveries. He returned one of the fumbles for a touchdown.
The recent rise to college stardom is new to Rodriguez, let alone seeing his own coach and a school legend lobbying on his behalf.
“Growing up, I wanted to win the Heisman as a quarterback, I had my thoughts of being in the conversation as a quarterback,” Rodriguez told the Dallas Morning News. “Once I switched to linebacker, especially those earlier years, man, I was just trying to make the team.”
Texas Tech, which is 6-0 at home, is searching for its fourth straight overall win as it faces a UCF squad that has dropped five of its last six games.
The Knights lost 30-27 to visiting Houston on Nov. 7, blowing two 10-point leads during the contest. The Cougars survived with a tiebreaking 22-yard field goal from Ethan Sanchez with 2:31 remaining.
“The one thing you can take out of that Houston game, as disappointing as it was, is how much fight there was in our guys,” Knights coach Scott Frost said. “I never want us to lose that.”
Frost is trying to restructure the program in his second stint at the school. He famously coached UCF to a 13-0 record in 2017 and now says there is a lot of work to do to get the school back to that level.
“This was always going to be a process,” Frost said. “I knew we had enough talent to be competitive in this league, and we do, and we still do. Like I said, a couple plays here and there, and it looks a lot different right now, but that’s the process you go through.”
UCF safety Phillip Dunnam starred in the loss to Houston and became the first player in program history with three interceptions in a game.
The programs met for the first time in 2023 with the Red Raiders squeaking out a 24-23 home win.
