No. 11 BYU will cap chaotic week with Big 12 championship. But first, charity with Texas Tech fans

ARLINGTON, Texas — Since No. 11 BYU's last game a week ago against UCF, the Cougars have lived out a season of college football.

In less than six days, BYU:

• Signed head coach Kalani Sitake to a long-term contract extension that includes significant upgrades to the Cougars' staffing, revenue sharing and NIL funding.
• Inked the highest-rated recruiting class in the 247Sports era, and potentially all-time.
• Celebrated some 40 overall All-Big 12 honors, including Sitake as coach of the year, LJ Martin as offensive player of the year, and Bear Bachmeier as offensive freshman of the year as voted on by league coaches.

So what's next?

A rematch with No. 4 Texas Tech, the Big 12 juggernaut and the only team to hand BYU a loss — in Big 12 play and otherwise.

After a wild week, the Cougars (11-1, 8-1 Big 12) and Red Raiders (11-1, 8-1 Big 12) will play for the Big 12 championship Saturday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas (10 a.m. MST, ABC).

But through the twists and turns, the team never doubted. They practiced like normal Monday and Tuesday — even while their head coach's flirtation with a reportedly life-changing offer at Penn State was in flux — and board a plane for the DFW Metroplex on Thursday afternoon.

Just like wide receiver Chase Roberts always said they would.

"I knew we were going to do it," said Roberts, who guaranteed the rematch moments after the Cougars' 29-7 loss in Lubbock a month ago. "I promised you guys, and I fulfilled my promise to Cougar Nation that we were going to meet them again in the Big 12 championship. I had full confidence."

Roberts was confident because he heard the same thing from Sitake, and the Cougars followed their senior leader and team captain's model.

"I know the opportunity this has on fans, on BYU, to have an opportunity to go to the Playoff," he said. "And we're going to go and leave our hearts out on the field for all of you guys."

They won't be alone, though.

The 80,000-seat AT&T Stadium that is also the home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys has been sold out since the middle of the week, the combination of a Texas Tech squad just over 300 miles away and a halftime concert by award-winning country music artist Jon Pardi.

Then, of course, there's BYU and its nation — or even world — wide fanbase that consistently travels well.

That includes 6,200 alumni in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, twice that in the state of Texas and nearly 6,000 more from neighboring states of Oklahoma and Arkansas, said the BYU Alumni Association chair for the DFW chapter Taggart Barron.

"I really think we're going to have in the neighborhood of 35-40,000 fans — so almost half of the stadium," said Barron.

"In my view, this is the biggest game in BYU football history," he added during an appearance on BYUtv.

Barron and his counterpart with the DFW chapter of the Texas Tech alumni association Zach Hall were on hand at Friday night's fan event at Globe Life Field that — in true BYU fan fashion — doubled as a service project, a food drive benefitting Arlington Charities.

Fans from both sides showed up at the home of MLB's Texas Rangers to donate close to 4,000 pounds of food and nonperishable items for the charity organization in the Arlington area. It was an extension of the last time these two teams met, when Texas Tech got the win — and BYU left after delivering a half-dozen truck beds of new and gently-used books in the Lubbock area.

"We had several conference calls with them, and I was really impressed to see their enthusiasm and the way they jumped on board to do this nice thing for Arlington Charities," Barron said. "It's been fantastic."

Added Hall: "When we got off the call earlier this week, we got together and said, this is awesome. I can't tell you how much feedback and excitement we've had, of people reaching out all day, where they can go to donate money and everything else."

The groups' food drive also corresponded with the opening of two of the church's Giving Machines as part of the annual "Light the World" holiday campaign.

That such an event could fall on line with two top Big 12 rivals has made the moment unique — even for as much as both fanbases want to win Saturday.

"It's been fun to see the back-and-forth of both fanbases getting excited to do this thing together tonight and tomorrow," Hall said. "And then they're excited to play each other tomorrow."

The only thing left involves the game — with an automatic berth in the College Football Playoff at stake for both teams, though Texas Tech has likely clinched at least an at-large bid with its current ranking and resume.

No more distractions starting Saturday morning.

"It's one of the biggest games in BYU history; we understand that," Roberts said. "We're going to go out and play for BYU, for our fans, for our loved ones and Kalani and all of the coaches, as well as our brothers. This is the moment that we pray for, that we dream of, that we go into meetings manifesting.

"It was going to be the same either way," he added. " It's nice to get a little distraction out of the way, for the fans and everything that was happening. But as players, we've bought in already; we knew what we were going to do and want to accomplish."

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