Texas Tech’s 1996 season has a shiny enough record at first glance. Seven wins.
A pair of road victories over Texas A&M and Oklahoma. A trip to the Alamo Bowl.
But the full picture tells a tougher story. The Red Raiders were fine against the soft spots on the schedule, yet every time they ran into a ranked opponent, they got pushed around.
They faced three ranked teams that year and lost all three by an average of 16 points.
That pattern showed up right away in the season opener, which also happened to be the first football game ever played in the Big XII conference. Texas Tech went to Manhattan to face No. 21 Kansas State and came away with a 21-14 loss in a bruising game that might have gone the other way if Donny Hart had been ruled in bounds on an apparent touchdown catch.
After that, the Red Raiders quickly found their footing against lesser opposition. They rolled past Oklahoma State, 31-3, in Texas Stadium, then took care of Utah State in Lubbock by a 58-20 margin. Baylor got hammered next, with Byron Hanspard ripping off 287 rushing yards in a 45-24 Texas Tech win, and Kansas put up more of a fight before the Red Raiders still got out with a 30-17 victory.
The first real gut check came when No. 5 Nebraska visited Lubbock. Texas Tech hung with the Cornhuskers for a half, going into the break tied 10-10, but Nebraska took over after halftime and scored twice more for a 24-10 win.
There was also the strange trip to Athens, where Texas Tech went in against a Georgia team that was still winless after losses to Southern Miss and South Carolina. The Red Raiders were in control late, leading 12-7 with less than two minutes left.
After downing a punt at the Georgia 3, they looked set to escape. Instead, Mike Bobo led Georgia quickly down the field through the air, converting both a 4th-and-long and a 3rd-and-long before finishing the drive with a 21-yard touchdown pass in the closing moments.
Texas Tech still had chances to make the season feel bigger. One of them came at Texas A&M, where the Red Raiders won 13-10 for their first victory at Kyle Field since 1984.
The offense had been quiet most of the afternoon until Zebbie Lethridge faked play-action on 1st-and-10 and found Sammy Morris alone for an 81-yard touchdown with 6:21 left. The defense then closed it out.
The next week brought Texas to Lubbock, and Texas Tech never got comfortable. The Red Raiders fell behind 28-3 late in the second quarter before rallying hard, but they couldn’t complete the comeback and lost 38-32.
They did handle Southwest Louisiana, 56-21, in a November nonconference game, and they later went to Norman and beat an Oklahoma team that finished 3-8. But the postseason ended the way too many Spike Dykes bowl games did: with Texas Tech getting shut out by Iowa, 27-0.
Dykes finished with a 2-5 bowl record at Texas Tech, and his teams lost those games by an average of 24 points. Mike Leach, who followed him, would do much better once the bowls came around.
In Other News...
Texas Techs 2026 Plans Suddenly Hinge On Donovan Atwell
Donovan Atwell has quickly become one of the more important pieces of Texas Techs offseason conversation after a federal ruling opened the door for certain players from the high school class of 2022 to take a fifth season in 2026-27. The decision puts Atwell, who averaged 13.5 points and 3.2 rebounds last season, in position to potentially return under Grant McCasland and give the Red Raiders a proven scorer back in the mix.
For Tech, the timing matters because roster planning for next season now has to account for a player who could change the shape of the rotation. But Atwells status is still unsettled, since additional legal steps and NCAA action could still alter the picture, leaving the Red Raiders with a major possibility to monitor rather than a finished answer. [Read more 🡒]
Graham Huff Puts Gonzagas Biggest 2026 Question Front And Center
The early look at the nations top power forwards for the 2026-27 college basketball season does more than spotlight a few elite frontcourt names. It also gives Texas Tech fans a useful reminder of how much the upcoming season will hinge on the way the roster settles around that group of players, with Sports Illustrated weighing recent performance, skill sets and projected roles across the country. Graham Huff is among the names drawing attention in that conversation, a sign of how closely the Red Raiders are tied to the broader shuffle at the position.
What makes the list especially interesting is that it comes with real uncertainty baked in, from injury recoveries to roster changes that could reshape each players impact before the season even begins. For Texas Tech, that kind of variability is part of the story now, because the Red Raiders are watching a position battle and an evolving depth chart that could determine how high this group can rise once games start to matter. [Read more 🡒]