No. 13 Texas Tech heads to Corvallis on Saturday night with a little momentum and a much bigger exam waiting at Reser Stadium.
The Red Raiders opened the season by handling Abilene Christian 33-10, and now they’ll try to back that up against Oregon State in their first road game of the year. Texas Tech beat the Beavers 45-14 in last season’s rain-delayed meeting in Lubbock, but this one comes with a different feel: a road setting, a home opener for Oregon State, and a team that showed enough against a ranked opponent to earn Texas Tech’s attention.
Will Hammond is set for his second straight start at quarterback after a strong debut last week. He finished 26 of 33 for 298 yards and threw a touchdown late in the game, doing it in his first start in 315 days. Joey McGuire liked the way Hammond handled the moment.
“Will does a really good job preparing, and I was proud of Will because, he wasn’t overhyped up. He was really calm. Up until he did that interception, he was 14 of 14 in the game and so he’s really efficient,” he said, while admitting they should’ve used more chances to push the ball down field.
Texas Tech also got a balanced lift from its backfield. Cameron Dickey, Quentin Joyner and J’Koby Williams combined for 173 yards and two touchdowns, with Joyner and Williams scoring early to put Tech up 14-0 just 9:41 into the first quarter. McGuire said that group is still growing into its role.
“Without a doubt, the running game will continue to grow and keep getting better. I was proud of those guys, I thought they had great ball security.
I thought they were physical in the run game,” McGuire said. “I thought they were also physical, picking up any kind of blitz or anything like that.
We asked our running backs to do a lot, and then I think they had a lot of catches out of the backfield, as a combination of the three and so I thought those guys did a good job.”
There were other standouts, too. Kenny Holmes led the game with four catches for 76 yards, and Jamond Mathis piled up 2.5 sacks. Texas Tech’s defense held Abilene Christian to three points; the Wildcats’ other score came on a kickoff return with 2:29 left.
Oregon State comes in off a 33-20 loss to No. 23 Houston, but McGuire said he came away impressed by what he saw from the Beavers, especially considering last year’s 2-10 finish. He pointed to quarterback Braden Atkinson, who transferred from Mercer and threw for 376 yards against Houston.
“I was really impressed with Coach (JaMarcus) Shephard’s team playing Houston. There was a point it was 26-20 close game, and man I thought his guys played extremely hard and I was really impressed with the quarterback (Braden Atkinson),” he said.
“He transferred from a smaller school (Mercer) and threw for 376 yards against a really good defense in Houston. He can move in the pocket, he’s really accurate, so it’s going to be a great test.”
Atkinson completed 29 of 48 passes and had one touchdown in that game, and Texas Tech defensive coordinator Shiel Wood said the Beavers’ passing game creates problems in a few different ways.
“I think with the schemes that they have, they really try to scheme you up to push the ball down the field in some different ways, and I thought they did a nice job of finding some things they could attack,” he said. “They had, I think, six plays in the passing game that were 20 yards or more and then another handful that were 15 to 20 yards, so they got to them all different ways.”
Freshman receiver Jesse Legree is another name Tech has circled. He led Oregon State with five catches for 136 yards and a touchdown, including a 71-yard grab.
“They’ve got some guys that can make plays and they’re big up front, they are like us from the defensive side. They play a lot of people on defense, and it’ll be interesting how that changes maybe a little bit in the secondary because they played a lot of secondary guys.”
McGuire also expects a sellout crowd for Oregon State’s first home game of 2026, and he noted that plenty of those tickets will go to friends and family of tight end Jett Carpenter, who grew up in Medford, Ore., about three hours from Corvallis.
The game is set for 6:30 p.m. CT at Reser Stadium, and McGuire knows what kind of challenge is coming.
“I think they’re a really good football team, and they made it close right there in the end (against Houston),” McGuire said. “They’re going to be excited, and it’s a home opener, and they played well on the road against a ranked team, so they’ve got to be excited about their home opener.”
In Other News...
Texas Techs Oregon State Trip Includes A Contract Twist Fans May Not Expect
Texas Techs trip to Oregon State this fall carries a little more than the usual non-conference plotting. The Red Raiders are set to meet the Beavers on Sept. 12, 2025, and the game is part of a two-game series contract signed back in May 2018, one of the many non-conference matchups on Techs schedule through 2034 that come with an appearance fee attached.
In this case, the arrangement includes a payment due to Texas Tech by Dec. 31, 2025, and the officiating assignments are spelled out too. Pac-12 officials are scheduled to work the 2025 game, with Big 12 officials set for the return meeting in 2026, a small but notable detail in a matchup that has a few more moving parts than the average early-season road trip. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Tech's First Road Test Puts A Few Red Raiders Under Pressure
Texas Tech heads into its first road test after opening the season with a week-one win, and the Red Raiders are already dealing with a few lineup wrinkles as they prepare for Oregon State. The trip will put added attention on players expected to carry more of the load, including Jamond Mathis, Cameron Dickey and Malik Esquerra, while the defense also adjusts without starting edge rusher Trey White.
Mathis in particular gave Texas Tech a glimpse of what he can do in his debut, flashing as a disruptive presence right away and giving the staff another option to lean on in a tougher environment. Esquerras role is also expanding with Brendan Jordan serving a suspension, which pushes the safety into a second straight start and gives Texas Tech one more spot where the margin for error is a little thinner than it was a week ago. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Tech Faces A Confidence Check In A Game They Should Control
Week 2 gives Texas Tech a chance to settle in after an opening week that should have shown enough to strengthen the picture of what this roster can be. The Red Raiders have the kind of depth and matchup edges that make this one look manageable on paper, with the offense carrying more than enough weapons to stress a defense that already showed some cracks and a run game that did not offer much resistance in its first outing.
Still, the trip to Corvallis adds a little more edge than the spread would suggest, because games like this are as much about control as they are about talent. Texas Tech is expected to have the upper hand across the field, but the Red Raiders will be leaning on a long list of familiar names to keep that advantage from slipping, and this is the kind of night where one sloppy stretch can turn a comfortable script into a test of how confidently they can handle a game they are supposed to own. [Read more 🡒]