No. 11 Texas Tech gets its final tune-up of the non-conference slate Saturday morning, and the Red Raiders will do it as a massive favorite against Sam Houston State.
Tech is 3-0 overall and 1-0 in Big 12 play after edging Houston 28-26 on Friday, and the Bearkats come to Lubbock at 1-2 out of Conference USA. The Red Raiders are favored by 35.5 points, but Joey McGuire made it clear the challenge is about more than the spread: staying sharp after a hard-fought win and treating Sam Houston like the threat it can be.
“It’s going to be a good game! Sam Houston, they’re 1-2, but they play really tight against Troy and Tulsa.
You look at a Tulsa team that won in week one; they’re 3-0. It’s a fake punt that actually turns into a long touchdown that ends up beating Sam Houston State,” McGuire said.
“They played them really tight, and so they’re a good team. They’re really going to test us.
We’ve been tested in the secondary, and they’re going to test us. Their quarterback (Landyn Locke) is seventh in the nation passing with 973 yards.
He’s completing 67 percent of his throws and has nine touchdowns, and I know Coach Longo, he likes to air it out. It’s going to be a real test for us.”
Sam Houston’s results have been uneven, but the Bearkats opened the year with close losses to Troy and unbeaten Tulsa before rolling Nicholls 59-0 last Saturday. Texas Tech’s defensive staff sees an offense with enough pieces to create stress, especially through the air.
“They’ve got a couple guys. (Chris Reed) is a big play guy, he’s averaging over 22 yards a catch, so they stretch the field with him.
They’ve got a slot receiver, Grady O’Neill) that does a really nice job. He’s crafty, shifty; I think he finds holes in zones.
He’s able to change direction really well. It looks like he’s got really good ball skills, so I like the style of offense that these guys play.
I think schematically, they do some really good stuff,” he said. “Coach (Phil) Longo’s been at it for a long time.
He’s highly successful with a lot of stops, and from a scheme standpoint, they put a lot of stress on you in terms of just matching numbers with the style of offense that they play, and that’s what we’ll have to do a great job of this week.”
Will Hammond’s performance against Houston gave Texas Tech a boost at quarterback, as he went 17-of-27 for 257 yards and a touchdown. One of his biggest moments came late in the first half when he picked up 22 yards on the ground, another sign he’s growing into the No. 1 job. Offensively, Mack Leftwich is also preparing for a Sam Houston defense that comes downhill and makes life uncomfortable.
“They fly around, they’re an aggressive defense. They’ve got a really high blitz percentage.
They’ll come down and challenge you and play man-to-man coverage. They’ve got some length and some speed and they play hard,” he said.
“There’s always a bunch of people around the football rallying to it, they don’t give up a ton of big plays because they do play with such great effort, are doing a great job on third down, getting people off the field. So we got to have a great plan for that.”
Kickoff is set for 11 a.m. at Galaxy Stadium.
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McGuire pointed to the groups resilience and to key contributions across the roster as reasons Texas Tech held on in a tight finish. For the Red Raiders, the ranking bump is nice, but the bigger takeaway is what it says about where this team stands now: they can take a punch, answer back and leave a ranked opponent with a loss in a game that mattered. The challenge, as always, is turning that kind of performance into something they can keep stacking. [Read more 🡒]