After several years of spending Thanksgiving in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, Texas Tech and Baylor are returning to campus for their annual conference game and doing so much earlier than normal too.
As part of the Big 12’s release of the 2019 schedule on Thursday, the conference confirmed that the annual game will not be played on Thanksgiving weekend at AT&T Stadium -- the site of the game since 2009, with one exception -- and has instead been shifted to October 12 next season at the Bears home field of McLane Stadium in Waco. The return game will go back to Lubbock in 2020 at a future, unreleased date.
While some fans will delight in making the trip to the banks of the Brazos or heading out to West Texas for the first time in a while, it seems both schools would have preferred to remain at JerryWorld the week of Thanksgiving but scheduling at the stadium seemed to play an issue in the site not being available when the two teams needed it to be.
Baylor AD Mack Rhoades says Baylor and Texas Tech were looking for a date around Thanksgiving in 2019 at AT&T Stadium. When that didn't work out, the schools decided to play in Waco next year and Lubbock in 2020.
— John Werner (@JohnWernerTrib) October 18, 2018
John corroborates from Baylor side what I've reported this month from Tech side: Kirby Hocutt didn't change his preference on sites for the Tech-BU series. He's always said he wants it in Metroplex if it's on Thanksgiving weekend. https://t.co/kmCQormlBt
— Don Williams (@AJ_DonWilliams) October 18, 2018
AT&T Stadium is quite busy that time of year between the Dallas Cowboys’ annual Thanksgiving game, Texas high school football playoffs at the venue and the Big 12 title game taking place in early December as well. It doesn’t sound like a return is being ruled out in the future but it will be 2021 at the earliest before that happens for the Bears and Red Raiders.