If Kalani Sitake were to meet a football genie with the opportunity to take back a single result from the 2025 regular season, he wouldn't hesitate to erase the Cougars' brutal 29-7 defeat in Lubbock against the Texas Tech Red Raiders.
I'm starting to suspect that Kalani did meet a genie, because the more I think about it, the more perfect this situation must be for a BYU football team dying to creep into the College Football Playoff. Reaching the Big 12 Championship game in just its third season of Power Four membership, BYU football has a chance to recapture the narrative surrounding the only blemish on their top-10 worthy resume.
According to the College Football Playoff selection committee, the fashion in which BYU lost to Tech on the road was bad enough to slide the Cougars below a number of two-loss teams in the standings. BYU has covered the spread in every contest since their fated defeat and appears to be one of the strongest teams in the nation, boasting a record of 11-1 and a resume stronger than that of fellow one-loss teams like Oregon and Texas A&M. Despite having fewer losses and a better victory than that of 2-loss Notre Dame and Alabama, prestige bias has hard-locked the Cougars out of an at-large bid.
All of this can change on Tuesday if the order is shaken up ahead of BYU, but all indications are that the Cougars will be on the outside looking in before their fateful meeting in Arlington.
The stakes are monumental for BYU, a team with so much to prove and little opportunity to prove it. Will the ears of the nation listen if BYU loses in a narrow defeat on Saturday? Will reason and equality prevail at the expense of a few more dollars of revenue? Can BYU breach the College Football Playoff as an 11-1 team from a Power Four conference?
The answer to all of these should be yes. But nothing is guaranteed unless the team takes down Texas Tech and obtains an automatic bid. Until then, it's speculation season.
How to watch the Big 12 Championship game: BYU vs Texas Tech
Date: Saturday, December 6, 2025
Time: 10:00 AM MT
Location: Cowboy Stadium, Arlington, TX
Channel: ABC
Odds: TTU -11.5