LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — The only two Big 12 meetings between No. 10 Texas Tech and Arizona State have proven, with a strange twist, to be an accurate predictor of who would eventually be the conference champion.

Maybe it won’t happen that way again, but the home team won in each of the past two seasons and the loser then went on to win the Big 12 title.

Defending Big 12 champion Texas Tech (5-0, 2-0 Big 12), coming off an open date, is a two-touchdown favorite Saturday at home against Arizona State (3-2, 1-1).

The Red Raiders fell 26-22 last year in Tempe, overcoming a 12-point deficit in the fourth quarter before losing in the final minute. That was between a pair six-game winning streaks when Tech won all those games by an average margin of five touchdowns, with none closer than 22 points.

“We didn’t upset them. Last year’s team upset them,” Sun Devils coach Kenny Dillingham said this week, quickly acknowledging the difference in his squad from just a year ago.

Arizona State made its league debut in 2024, losing its opener in Lubbock before going on to be the Big 12 champion. While alternating wins and losses this year, a victory last week over one-win Hawaii followed a 55-19 home loss to Baylor.

“Coach (Joey) McGuire could go in there and show clips of us and say listen this team plays physical and this team plays hard, and he’s lying to himself. That’s not what the tape shows,” Dillingham said. “Right now, our identity is not that, and we can be that. ... That’s why I have so much freaking passion, frustration and excitement. It’s like, man, we can do it.”

Will Hammond’s first start as Texas Tech’s quarterback was the loss at Arizona State last season when Behren Morton was injured. Hammond completed 22 of 37 passes for 167 yards and two touchdowns, and ran for 47 yards. In the final 3:45, he scored on 1-yard run, threw a 12-yard TD pass and ran for a 2-point conversion.

“He knows exactly where we’re at and what we have to do, how important these games are in Big 12 play,” McGuire said. “But it’s just human nature whenever you have gone to a game, and an opponent that you’re about to play and we didn’t succeed, that you want to get that back.”

Hammond tore the ACL in his right knee when starting again the following week against Oklahoma State. That injury put into question his availability early this season, but he made it back for the opener and Tech is now seeking another 6-0 start.

Texas Tech has won 11 consecutive home games, its longest such streak since 12 in a row from 2007-09. The school record of 13 was set in 1942.

The Red Raiders have also won their last seven Big 12 regular-season games, matching their longest conference winning streak. They did that twice previously, in the Southwest Conference from 1973-74, and the Big 12 from 2007-08 with coach Mike Leach. Including their conference championship game win over BYU last December, they have won by an average margin of 28.3 points in the current streak.

The Red Raiders lead the Big 12 and are third nationally with their plus-72 point differential after halftime. They have three double-digit victories that were one-score games at halftime.

Arizona State last beat a top 10 team on the road in 2015, at then-No. 7 UCLA, before losing the last six such games. The Sun Devils had lost six in a row overall to top-10 teams, since a win over Oregon at home in 2019, before beating Texas Texas last year.

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