Big 12 team preview: QB issues aside, Texas Tech is still the highest paid, most talented team in the league

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Editor’s note: Fourteenth in a series previewing each team in the Big 12 in 2026.

Defending Big 12 champion Texas Tech does not have to play BYU or Utah in the 2026 college football regular season.

That’s just one of the reasons, and there are many, that the Red Raiders are predicted by most outlets to repeat as conference champions.

“I feel really good about that room. We just need to stay on track. Where we are at right now, I could see Will Hammond starting the first game. We will leave that up to the doctors and the medical staff, but he’s in a really good spot.”

Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire on Red Raiders' QB room

Of course, there is one glaring reason why some aren’t buying it. Texas Tech will try to become the first team to repeat since Oklahoma in 2020 with a lot of uncertainty and inexperience at quarterback, after the Brendan Sorsby situation dominated headlines the past couple of months.

Sorsby will miss the entire season after getting caught gambling on college football games, including those involving Indiana when he was a member of the Hoosiers program.

Coach Joey McGuire said at Big 12 football media days in early July that all is well in Lubbock now because backup Will Hammond is ahead of schedule in his return from a torn ACL he suffered last season. Hammond is the QB who replaced injured starter Behren Morton and beat Utah 34-10 last year at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

When he is on, Hammond is more than capable of leading the Red Raiders to another title, but he was wildly inconsistent in some of the other games in which he played before getting hurt.

“I feel really good about that room,” McGuire said on July 9. “We just need to stay on track. Where we are at right now, I could see Will Hammond starting the first game. We will leave that up to the doctors and the medical staff, but he’s in a really good spot.”

Texas Tech also brought in Tulsa transfer Kirk Francis, who started in 10 games last year for the Golden Hurricane and threw for 3,405 yards and 18 touchdowns in 18 total appearances with that American Conference school.

Redshirt freshman Lloyd Jones is also in the mix.

Around the quarterback, whoever it might be, McGuire’s team is stacked. Most notably, running backs Cameron Dickey and J’Koby Williams return after combining for nearly 2,000 rushing yards and 25 total touchdowns in 2025.

“We have 12 returning starters,” McGuire said. “I feel good that (captains) are helping bring the team together. I do think that what we’ve gone through the last couple of months have brought us even closer. … We feel like we’re in a really good spot culturally and team-wise.”

Tech’s offensive line and Morton were exposed as not being ready for primetime last December when Oregon shut out the Red Raiders to the tune of 23-0 in the Orange Bowl in a College Football Playoff quarterfinal game.

Three starters on that O line are back — Howard Sampson, Jacob Ponton and Sheridan Wilson — and so are a couple top-flight receivers such as senior Coy Eakin. Pitt transfer Kenny Johnson gives Tech a big-play threat.

Despite Texas Tech laying an egg in the CFP last year and embarrassing the conference throughout the Sorsby Saga with its insistence on standing behind the embattled quarterback at all costs, McGuire got on his soapbox at the Big 12 talkfest in Frisco, Texas, and challenged the other 15 teams in the league to step up.

“I think it is really important that this conference gets multiple teams in the playoffs. I think there’s an obligation as programs in this conference that we play at a high level, and then I think it is really important that we win in the playoffs,” McGuire said. “Until we do that as a conference, then we are going to continue to have the same narrative that we have right now.”

Defensively, Texas Tech lost 2025 NCAA sack leader David Bailey to the NFL, but have replaced him and others with several other highly paid transfers, including Trey White and Adam Trick. White had 19.5 sacks in two seasons at San Diego State and Trick has 12.5 tackles for loss last season at Miami of Ohio.

Linebacker Ben Roberts, who helped the Red Raiders shut down BYU in the Big 12 championship game with two interceptions in the second half of the 34-7 win, is back for more, and is joined by a run-stopper in Kansas State transfer Austin Romaine.

Clearly, Texas Tech is the most talented team in the conference, again. But how the Sorsby ordeal will play out in the locker room throughout the 2026 season remains to be seen.

McGuire said it won’t be a factor. Also, Texas Tech has a ridiculously easy schedule in 2026, playing Abilene Christian, Oregon State and Sam Houston in nonconference games and avoiding expected co-league leaders BYU and Utah altogether.

“The last couple of months we’ve gone through some adversity. I do believe if you walked into our building every single day and you walked into the weight room and the workouts or football school, you wouldn’t know that anything was going on,” McGuire said. “A big part of that has been Ben (Roberts) and Sheridan (Wilson). … At no point did I feel over the last few months that anything has taken away from the football as far as in the building.”

2026 Texas Tech Red Raiders at a glance

• 2025 record: 12-2 (8-1 Big 12)

Utah ties

• Junior defensive lineman JoJo Johnson prepped at Salt Lake City’s Olympus High before beginning his career at Oregon State.
• Associate head coach and special teams coordinator Kenny Perry played high school football at Granger High in West Valley City, Utah, before his family moved to Texas after his sophomore season.

2026 schedule

• Sept. 5: vs. Abilene Christian
• Sept. 12: at Oregon State
• Sept. 18: vs. Houston
• Sept. 26: vs. Sam Houston
• Oct. 3: at Colorado
• Oct. 17: vs. Arizona State
• Oct. 24: at Cincinnati
• Oct. 31: vs. Arizona
• Nov. 7: vs. West Virginia
• Nov. 14: at Oklahoma State
• Nov. 21: at Baylor
• Nov. 28: vs. TCU

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