Texas Tech won't be playing a Big 12 football game against Oklahoma State in the Dallas area but instead could soon play Baylor here, Tech athletic director Gerald Myers told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal on Friday.

Myers said longstanding negotiations with Oklahoma State had fallen through, but that Tech could play Baylor at either the Cotton Bowl or the Cowboys' new stadium in Arlington beginning as early as this year.

Former State Fair of Texas board chairman Pete Schenkel told The Dallas Morning News on Friday night that Cotton Bowl stadium officials have been in discussions with Myers and Baylor athletic director Ian McCaw about a Red Raiders-Bears matchup at Fair Park.

Myers and McCaw didn't return phone calls from The News.

Schenkel, who helped negotiate a contract extension that kept the Texas-Oklahoma game at the Cotton Bowl through 2015, said he'd like to see the Tech-Baylor game played during the 2009 State Fair, which runs Sept. 25 through Oct. 18. He said there have been discussions about making the Baylor-Tech game an annual affair during the State Fair.

But this year's game – a home game for Baylor – is scheduled for Nov. 28. Baylor and Tech play each other in the regular-season finale every year through 2015. To get this year's Baylor-Tech game during the State Fair, both schools would have to agree to move the game up and have opponents work with them, because their open dates fall on different September weekends.

"It'd have to happen pretty soon," Schenkel said, in order to get the 2009 game moved. "We'd be excited just to get another game in the Cotton Bowl and have it during State Fair time."

One of the holdups in the Tech-Oklahoma State negotiations was agreeing on where to play the game. Oklahoma State athletic director Mike Holder said he wanted to play at the new Cowboys stadium, but Tech officials never did agree on that site.

Schenkel said the Cotton Bowl has offered Tech and Baylor a travel allowance of $125,000 that would cover each team's expenses. That's a perk the Cowboys haven't offered Tech, Myers told the Avalanche-Journal.

Schenkel said he's been in conversations with athletic officials from several other schools about scheduling a game at the Cotton Bowl during the State Fair and that he's offered the same travel allowance to other schools. He also confirmed that Tech-Oklahoma State negotiations had come to a halt.

"We'd like to have had them, but we'd be just as happy to have Baylor-Tech or whoever," he said. "We'd be very excited."