Texas Tech has put itself in the middle of one of the toughest recruiting fights in the country for Jaylen Addai, a 5-star wide receiver from Pearland, Texas.
Addai, a class of 2028 prospect, has lined up six official visits this fall, and the Red Raiders are among the schools getting a look. According to Sam Spiegelman of Rivals.com, Addai will visit LSU on September 5, Texas on September 12, Texas A&M on September 19, Alabama on October 10, Texas Tech on October 31, and Notre Dame on November 7.
That’s a brutal list for any program to navigate. Texas Tech is battling LSU, Texas, Texas A&M, Alabama, and Notre Dame for one of the top players in the country.
According to 247Sports.com's composite rankings, Addai is the No. 7 player nationally regardless of position and the No. 1 player in Texas in his class. The 5-foot-11, 165-pound receiver also holds offers from Miami, Ohio State, Florida, Auburn, Michigan, Ole Miss, Oregon, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Southern California, among others.
Five-star WR Jaylen Addai has locked in six game-day visits for the season, he tells me for @Rivals
Inside the contenders setting the pace in his recruitment: https://t.co/DwtVdIAzWr https://t.co/81HBBxprqC pic.twitter.com/MFhPgBeCWf
- Sam Spiegelman (@samspiegs) September 4, 2026
The production is already there, too. Last season, as only a sophomore, Addai caught 37 passes for 779 yards and 14 touchdowns, while averaging 21.1 yards per reception.
For Texas Tech, Addai fits into a bigger pattern. Joey McGuire and his staff have spent the last few recruiting cycles stockpiling wide receiver talent, and the list keeps growing.
The run started in the class of 2024 when Micah Hudson, a Temple, Texas native, became the first 5-star player ever to sign with Texas Tech. The class of 2025 brought in 4-star Stephenville product Tristan Gentry, along with 3-star receivers Bryson Jones, Leyton Stone, and Michael Dever.
In the most recent high school class, Texas Tech signed 4-star receiver Chase Campbell out of Frienship High School in Wolfforth. He was one of only two high school receivers the Red Raiders added in that class.
The 2027 class adds more firepower, with commit Benny Easter Jr., a 4-star prospect from Humble, Texas, and Julian Caldwell, a 4-star pass catcher from Argyle, Texas.
If Texas Tech were to land Addai, it would be another major recruiting victory. It would also give the Red Raiders the No. 1 player in Texas for the second straight recruiting class after landing defensive tackle Jalen Brewster, the No. 1 player in America in the class of 2027.
There was a time when simply getting Addai on campus and into the conversation with those blue-blood programs would have been enough to turn heads in Lubbock. Now, after the last three years Texas Tech has put together on the recruiting trail, it wouldn’t be surprising at all if the Red Raiders ended up making a serious run at bringing the 5-star receiver to West Texas.
In Other News...
Texas Tech Uniform Reveal Sparked The Patch Debate Fans Dreaded
Texas Techs week-one football look arrived with plenty to talk about, starting with a familiar and sharp combination of black helmets, red jerseys and black pants. The bigger conversation, though, came from the details. The Patrick Mahomes II Gladiator logo has taken the place of the adidas mark on the left shoulder, a nod that will draw attention every time the Red Raiders take the field.
The jerseys also still show the old Big 12 logo for now, even though a new Big 12 and Monster Energy hybrid mark is expected to show up during the upcoming game. It is the kind of uniform tweak that sounds small until fans realize what it could mean for the look of the chest area, especially with the leagues recent deal with Monster Energy already drawing mixed reactions. [Read more 🡒]
Louisville Fans Just Landed In A College Football Debate Nobody Saw Coming
College football message boards have never exactly been a monastery, but a new study from Covers put some numbers to the noise. After analyzing thousands of Reddit posts, the site ranked fan bases by profanity, vulgar emojis and negative sentiment, and the results offered the kind of petty side debate that usually fuels an offseason more than a Saturday: Mississippi State finished with the highest vulgarity score, just ahead of Arkansas, while Louisville, Wyoming and Jacksonville State filled out the top five.
For Texas Tech fans, the more interesting wrinkle is where the Big 12 landed in the broader conference picture. The league finished just ahead of the SEC in average vulgarity, a sign that the sports online trash talk is hardly confined to one corner of the map. At the other end of the scale, Sacramento State came out as the least vulgar fan base, a reminder that even in college footballs ugliest digital corners, somebody is still keeping it relatively clean. [Read more 🡒]
Joey McGuires USC Attendance Jab Just Hit Even Harder
Joey McGuires comments about the turnout for USCs home opener have now spilled well beyond the scoreboard, with the Texas Tech coachs jab drawing a pointed social media response from former Trojans receiver Keyshawn Johnson. Johnson pushed back on the criticism by defending USCs crowd and offering his own explanation for the atmosphere in Los Angeles, pointing to weather, the opponent and the sheer number of things competing for attention in the city.
The exchange has also reopened an old, familiar comparison between the programs and their fan bases. Texas Tech has long prided itself on packing Jones AT&T Stadium despite being in a much smaller market, while USC plays in one of the countrys biggest metro areas and still often gets measured by how many fans actually show up. McGuires remark landed as a dig at that gap, and Johnsons response made clear he was not about to let it pass without a counterpunch. [Read more 🡒]