Texas Tech has 15 varsity teams and they compete in the Big 12 Conference . After being rejected eight times over a period of more than twenty years , Texas Tech was admitted to the Southwest Conference on May 12 , 1956 . When the Southwest Conference disbanded in 1995 , Texas Tech , along with the University of Texas at Austin , Texas A&M University , and Baylor University , merged with schools from the former Big Eight Conference to form the Big 12 .