PROVO — Like much of the ground under the west Texas oil fields, BYU’s undefeated season sunk in the Lubbock desert Saturday.

Cameron Dickey ran for 121 yards and a touchdown, and No. 8 Texas Tech handed seventh-ranked BYU its first loss, 29-7, Saturday afternoon at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas.

Behren Morton threw for 219 and a touchdown, and Stone Harrington nailed five field goals for Texas Tech (9-1, 6-1 Big 12) to put itself back in the driver’s seat for a spot in the Big 12 championship game.

BYU, too, controls its own destiny for a berth in the conference title game Dec. 6 in Arlington, Texas. But the Cougars have no room for error, with a head-to-head tiebreaker over two-loss Utah, and a late-season tilt with one-loss Cincinnati still remaining.

More pressing is how the Red Raiders held BYU scoreless until Bear Bachmeier found Chase Roberts for a 6-yard touchdown with 7:35 left in the fourth quarter.

The Cougars (8-1, 5-1 Big 12) had just 157 yards of offense before Bachmeier capped an eight-play, 75-yard drive midway through the final quarter.

But the visitors were down 26-8 at that point in their first loss of the year.

“Coach McGuire had his guys ready to play,” said BYU coach Kalani Sitake, calling Texas Tech “one of the best teams in the country.”

“They did a good job of holding us off, and we were trying to make a run and get the momentum switched. We weren’t able to do that. … We just didn’t do enough against a really good team at home. They found a way to play better than we did.

“This is going to be a really good experience for us to learn from.”

Bachmeier finished with 188 passing yards, but just 17 on the ground. LJ Martin ran for 35 yards on nine carries and added 29 yards on a team co-leading six receptions, while Roberts finished with 61 yards on six catches for the Cougars.

Texas Tech outgained BYU with 368 yards to 255, including holding the visitors to just 67 rushing yards while forcing three turnovers.

Texas Tech gained -24 yards on its first two drives, but opened with a field goal and outgained the Cougars 68-46 en route to the 10-0 first-quarter lead.

Special teams didn’t help the visitors, with a shanked punt, a muffed punt and a missed 51-yard field goal attempt leaving three consecutive empty possessions before Harrington stretched the lead to 13-0 with his second field goal with 8:08 left in the half.

In between, of course, was Morton’s 9-yard touchdown strike to a toe-tapping Caleb Douglas to complement a defense that forced five straight empty possessions and held BYU to 2-of-8 on third downs.

The Cougars sacked Morton four times in the first half — including twice by former Weber State transfer Jack Kelly, with another quarterback hurry — but the veteran quarterback with 40 games of collegiate experience completed 8-of-15 passes for 134 yards en route to a 13-0 halftime advantage.

BYU’s defense was as advertised in the first top-10 matchup in program history.

But same for the Red Raiders, who were hosting ESPN’s “College GameDay” for the first time since 2008 — and eager to make up for their lone loss at Arizona State (when Morton didn’t play).

“The first half was back and forth a little bit,” Sitake said. “We gave up 13 points, but I thought we had a good stop at the end and even started well in the second half. But we weren’t able to get the momentum swinging in our way, offensively.

“And special teams wasn’t really an advantage for us. I thought they executed their plans very well.”

The heart of that defense was Jacob Rodriguez, the 23-year-old fifth-year senior from Wichita Falls, Texas, who transferred closer to home after a year at Virginia and walked on to the football team while sleeping on the floor of his brother’s apartment before leading one of the top defenses in the country and pouring on a game-high 14 tackles.

Rodriguez tipped one of Bachmeier’s passes to himself on BYU’s second drive of the second half, setting up Harrington to connect on one of four field goals.

Kelly and Isaiah Glasker combined for 17 tackles and three of the Cougars’ four sacks and four of six tackles for loss, while the Red Raiders out of the end zone all but once until Dickey scored on a 1-yard TD plunge to open the fourth quarter and help pull away for good.

“There are a lot of things that we know we need to improve on,” Kelly said after the game. “Just continue to build off of this.

“We know we need to get better, so we’ll watch the film and focus on our corrections. We’ve got to take that into next week and focus on TCU; they’re going to be a great team coming to us, and we’ve got to focus on them.”

BYU hosts former Mountain West rival TCU next Saturday, Nov. 15 (8:15 p.m. MST, ESPN).

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