Spring check-ins: Can Texas Tech buy a title?

With this recent offseason, Cody Campbell is becoming one of the more well known figures in college sports. He recently was named a co-chair of a college football commission developed by Nick Saban at the behest of President Trump to make suggestions on how to handle NIL. Before that he’d started to become increasingly known as the young West Texas billionaire who sold his stake in the Double Eagle energy company and started pitching in to try and make something happen for Texas Tech football.

So, not hypothetically, if Texas Tech had a Phil Knight sort of donor, could they win a championship out in Lubbock?

Money has helped solve the problem of getting kids to come play their football out in Lubbock rather than somewhere nicer or with a more prestigious football program, but is Tech adding the right kinds of players?

The Joey McGuire Red Raiders

Last year was the end of the Joey McGuire/Zach Kittley tandem on offense. You had to wonder if things were getting rocky given how often McGuire seemed to be urging them to run the ball with the quarterback, or in 2024 with Tahj Brooks, when Kittley got here with a Kliff Kingsbury-tree version of the Air Raid.

Last year they centered the offense around the unique talent they had at running back (Brooks) and Kittley then left to become the next head coach at FAU when the Owls fired Tom Herman.

Tech used tempo and still flung it around quite a bit with quarterback Behren Morton attempting 466 passes for 3,335 yards at 7.2 ypa with 27 touchdowns to eight interceptions. However, Brooks got 286 carries he turned into 1,505 yards at 5.3 ypc with 17 touchdowns. A high volume for a Raid back.

Nearly every game was a shootout in which Tech usually came out ahead. They put together an 8-5 record overall and 6-3 mark in Big 12 play. They had big wins over both Arizona State and Iowa State, each of whom played for the league title, but got smacked by Shedeur Sanders and Colorado and lost back-to-back in-state games against Baylor and TCU, knocking them from the top two.

For this coming season they hired Mack Leftwich from Texas State, where he’s served as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach under GJ Kinne for the last two seasons, to replace Kittley. That makes him a “copy cat shooter” from the Veer and Shoot school of offense and means we need a new branch on the tree.

The Raiders were already pretty RPO-based so this shouldn’t be too big a departure from what they were already doing. Kittley wanted to get after people down the field just like the V&S guys, he just didn’t use the wide splits to do so.

Defensively, McGuire fired his coordinators after the unit gave up 34.8 ppg and finished 44th in defensive FEI (some incongruity there) after surrendering 26 ppg and finishing 26th in defensive FEI the year prior. He must be feeling some heat to get results with the influx of Campbell cash.

On defense he hired Shiel Wood fresh off a strong season at Houston where the Cougars gave up just 22.9 ppg and ranked 35th in defensive FEI. Tech had been running the same sort of 2-4-5 that has become ubiquitous across college football with a big field-side Edge and a lighter Edge in the boundary. Michigan won the title with that defense, Texas and Oregon run it, and Kalen DeBoer has preferred it at both Washington and Alabama.

Wood uses the 3-down tite front with a bigger field side end in a 4i-technique, a typical Edge in the boundary, and a bigger nickel/field backer to help contain plays to the wide side. 

Tricks to this style include having a disruptive nose tackle and fast, versatile athletes at nickel, field safety, and mike linebacker to turn the ball back inside since you tend to yield an open edge by alignment.

The hope would be this new style helps the Raiders be better on fundamentals and they can translate a starting lineup on both sides of the ball comprised of either returning starters or starters from other schools acquired in the transfer portal, into a winning unit. As for those transfers…

Texas oil money at work

The reason Tech is getting some hype as a potential contender this season relates entirely to their work in the transfer portal. Here’s what the Raiders added this offseason:

• WR Micah Hudson, a former 5-star who originally signed with Texas Tech, crashed out and went to A&M, crashed out there and is now back…
• Edge David Bailey, a former blue chip who was productive at Stanford and just transferred in to (surely) seize the boundary Edge position.
• D-tackle Lee Hunter, another former blue chip and massive dude (6-foot-4, 321 pounds) who flushed out of Auburn but ended up having a solid career at UCF and now grad transfers in.
• RB Quinten Joyner, explosive rushing totals for USC last year off the bench (478 yards at 7.6 ypc) but an Austin-area kid who came back home to Texas.
• Cornerback Dontae Balfour, a 6-foot-1 former blue chip who bailed on North Carolina to find a starting job at Charlotte where he had consecutive strong seasons.
• Edge Romello Height, a journeyman Edge who began his career at Auburn and transferred to both USC and Georgia-Tech before finishing out at Tech. Might have started before they added Bailey.
• Corner Brice Pollock, a starter from Mississippi State the Raiders poached.
• D-lineman Anthony Holmes, Jr, the boundary defensive end/tackle swing player for Houston last year who was highly productive in this scheme and led the Cougars in tackle for loss with nine.
• Tight end Terrance Carter, Jr who started for Louisiana last season and caught nearly 50 balls.
• Safety Cole Wisniewski, multi-year starter for the North Dakota State Bison defensive machine and a 6-foot-4, 220 pound specimen.
• Left tackle Howard Sampson, a massive 6-foot-8, 330 pounder that multiple top teams pursued out of the transfer portal only to be outbid by Tech.
• Wide receiver Reginald Virgil, a big outside target (6-foot-3) who broke out at Miami of Ohio last year for 816 yards on just 41 catches with nine touchdowns.

That’s just 12 of the more notable 21 incoming transfers Campbell’s cash infusion helped add to this roster. They added almost exclusively transfers who were starters at their previous stops and often very productive ones at that. They remade the D-line for the new defensive coordinator, reloaded the offense with weapons, added multiple O-linemen with starting experience, grabbed proven cornerbacks, and even got a kicker and back-up quarterback as insurance policies.

If this can all come together under a new coaching staff this is a remarkably deep team for a Big 12 squad. If.

Key War Game fundamentals

There’s a number of indicators I’ve wrestled through in recent years about what makes a great team in the current era of college football and Texas Tech checks off a shockingly large number of boxes.

For instance, in terms of a core four of left tackle, D-tackle, nose tackle, and Edge and ensuring the team has game changing, or at least good, talent at the big man positions Tech has done well.

The Raiders added the coveted left tackle from North Carolina in Sampson who’s had proven production in college games, they added Houston’s top D-lineman from a salty Cougar defense, they added one of the best Edges in the portal, and they added two other starting D-tackles from other schools.

Perhaps these four wouldn’t particularly stand out amongst the top SEC or Big 10 schools, although I’m not sure they’d really lag far behind, but they sure will in the Big 12.

Is the quarterback four laws safe? Behren Morton isn’t going to bring much value-add as a runner but this will be his fourth year starting and he’ll have his top two targets back plus the big play wideout from the MAC (Virgil). Presumably in year four he could add more progression passing but instead I think they’ll just focus on making sure he knows the Veer and Shoot.

What sorts of transfers did they bring in? Failed blue chips from other schools or proven producers who earned their way up from lower levels of play? This distinction made the difference between Florida State going undefeated in 2023 and barely winning a game in 2024. It’s the latter at Tech, they didn’t throw wild money at big names who haven’t produced, unless they gave Micah Hudson another bag which I doubt. Everyone coming in earned their oil dividend.

Finally, do they have quarterbacks on defense who can help them be flexible and execute winning gameplans from week to week? How veteran and solid is the safety room?

Wisniewski is shockingly effective on the back end for such a tall dude. He knows where to fit on the back end and picked off eight passes in his last year (2023) after moving from linebacker to safety. Usually guys go from safety to linebacker…

As you’d expect from such a big dude, he’s a good tackler and physical enforcer in the box but his ability to rove from the boundary in zone is very effective as well. Opposite him they’ll play lighter coverage dudes like returning starter Chapman Lewis which should bring the right versatility and meet the “rule of three” requirements you need to make this sort of defensive scheme work.

Tech has put together quite the roster and they’ve done it in an intelligent way. Them and those SMU Mustangs with their old money donors have figured out how to get their cash to go to work for them.

So are there any hang-ups? I see just one.

While it may be good for McGuire not to be tempted to run his quarterback regularly since Morton ain’t that kind of player, these copycat shooters tend to prefer a dual-threat (and Tech has started recruiting them) to allow them to field a receiving tight end. This squad has mobile tight ends who are more receiver than bludgeon, or to borrow tight end enthusiast Max Toscano’s favorite meme:

Generally you want at least two out of three heads on your backfield hydra to produce in short-yardage and the red zone. A dual-threat quarterback, a top notch short-yardage running back, and a physical tight end/fullback. If you have two out of three, you should be good to go. I’m not sure Tech has even one of those components.

Tech may have built the strongest and deepest roster in the league but Arizona State is still around and the Big 12 is known for producing a team or two every year that will surprise with some unforeseen superstars emerging and a perfect supporting cast. I’m curious to see if Raiders can buy their way past the rest of the league and make the playoffs in 2025…or if Campbell’s cash may end up going to work on McGuire’s buyout.

This article was originally published at America’s War Game.