Texas Tech walks into Big 12 Football Media Days with the kind of attention the program hasn’t had in a while, and not all of it is comfortable.
The Red Raiders are the conference’s betting favorite, sitting at an over/under of 10.5 wins at BetMGM, and they head toward the 2026 regular season with a real chance to get back to the College Football Playoff for a fifth straight year. That alone would make next week in Frisco worth watching. Add in the Brendan Sorsby situation, and there’s plenty for Joey McGuire to sort through.
Texas Tech will be represented onstage by All-American tight end Terrance Carter Jr., defensive tackle A.J. Holmes Jr., wide receiver Coy Eakin, cornerback Brice Pollock, linebacker Ben Roberts and center Sheridan Wilson.
One of the biggest questions centers on the quarterback room, even if the Sorsby fallout has dominated the conversation. The more immediate football issue is how Tech handles the competition between returning quarterback Will Hammond and Tulsa transfer Kirk Francis.
Francis completed 53 passes for 493 yards and three touchdowns last season, while Hammond has already shown up in games eight different times, including starts against Arizona State and Oklahoma State. He finished with 69 completions, 680 yards and seven touchdowns, and looks like the frontrunner heading into fall camp as Francis pushes for snaps.
There’s also the matter of replacing major production on defense and offense. The New York Jets took defensive end David Bailey second overall in the 2026 NFL Draft, and his departure leaves a huge void after 23 tackles-for-loss.
Texas Tech will need leadership to emerge from Holmes, Roberts or Wilson, and the defensive front now becomes an even bigger project with Imarjaye Albury in his first season coaching the trenches. On the other side of the ball, the Red Raiders also have to account for the loss of Behren Morton steering the offense.
That’s all happening while Texas Tech carries a spotlight it hasn’t dealt with before. The preseason favorite tag changes the mood around a program fast, especially when the rest of the league is lined up to take a shot. McGuire’s team is entering a room with 15 other programs knowing full well everyone will be coming after them.
And then there’s the historical piece. Only Oklahoma and Baylor have managed back-to-back Big 12 football titles, which puts Texas Tech in position to chase something the league has rarely seen. The question now is what changes when a roster shifts from being built to compete to being built to defend a title run from the 2025 season.
In Other News...
BYU Should Watch How Big 12 Tension Boils Over This Week
Big 12 footballs annual media gathering arrives this week at The Star in Frisco with all 16 schools represented, and the conference has no shortage of issues to sort through. For Texas Tech and the rest of the league, the backdrop is bigger than a simple preseason photo op, with coaches and players set to face questions about everything from the fallout around Brendan Sorsbys impermissible betting case to the conferences push for a larger College Football Playoff, plus the ripple effects of the NCAAs new 5-for-5 eligibility model.
For the Red Raiders, the timing matters because these conversations are tied directly to how the Big 12 wants to position itself in the years ahead. The league is also heading toward another round of media rights negotiations in search of more revenue, and commissioner Brett Yormark has made clear the conference is trying to maximize its value in a rapidly changing landscape. BYU, like everyone else in the room, will be watching closely to see which themes take hold and which ones become the next flashpoint. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Tech Fans Finally Have A New Roster Rule To Track
The NCAA Division I Cabinets approval of a new age-based eligibility rule gives Texas Tech fans something unusual to monitor well beyond the weekly injury report or transfer chatter. Starting in the 2026-27 academic year, athletes who enroll by the academic year after their 19th birthday can get up to five years of eligibility, and Joey McGuire has already voiced support for the change as the Red Raiders look ahead to how it could shape roster planning across the program.
For Texas Tech, the ripple effects stretch across football, mens basketball and softball, with a long list of current Red Raiders suddenly easier to sort into future keep-or-move-on buckets. It also puts a spotlight on the incoming class, since so many freshmen could arrive with the potential for a longer runway than previous groups had, while others on the current roster will find themselves on the wrong side of the new framework and have to plan accordingly. [Read more 🡒]