The Lineup
EDITOR
Gene Myers
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Rashawn Franklin
REPORTERS
Nathan Giese
Don Williams
PHOTOGRAPHER
Nathan Giese
DESIGNERS
Lee Benson, Joey Schaffer
PROOFREADER
Heather Hewitt
COPY EDITOR
Sherrill Amo
PROJECT COORDINATOR
Gene Myers
SPECIAL THANKS
Alicia Del Gallo, Chris Thomas, Chris Fenison, Tommy Deas,
Clarissa Shine, Mateo Rosiles,
Jared Sábado-Hernández
Dedications
About the book
“Red Reign” condenses a year’s worth of the world’s best coverage of the Texas Tech Red Raiders from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. For continuing coverage of Texas Tech, go to lubbockonline.com. Order a print subscription or access the eNewspaper for the Avalanche-Journal by calling 888-448-5909 or going to subscribe.lubbockonline.com/offers. This book includes coverage from the USA TODAY Network, which includes the Avalanche-Journal.
ON THE COVER: Jacob Rodriguez won every major defensive award. NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
PREVIOUS PAGE: The Red Raiders “Eat a W” after winning. NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
OPPOSITE: It’s Guns Up at the homecoming bonfire. MATEO ROSILES / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
Nathan Giese: I would like to thank my biggest fans, Kris and Todd Giese and Ellysa Harris, and the Burger King on University Avenue for fueling much of this season.
Don Williams: For Mother and Daddy, I wouldn’t have made it this far without your supporting my sports obsession all those years ago. For Shoan Garcia, Alexis Gomez and my little buddy Miles Garcia, your love and support every day means the world. Thanks in equal measure to Jerry, Jane and the soccer-playing Williams sisters, Kaitlin, Sarah and Lindsey. And to Mike, Lisa and the Marmolejo brothers, Brett, Connor and Mason, better athletes than their uncle ever was. Y’all are my all-star team.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owner or the publisher.
Published by Pediment Publishing, a division of The Pediment Group, Inc. • www.pediment.com • Printed in Canada.
This book is an unofficial account of Texas Tech’s season by the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and is not endorsed by the NCAA or Texas Tech University.
Copyright © 2026 by the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and USA TODAY Sports • All Rights Reserved • ISBN: 978-1-63846-191-3
RED REIGN RED REIGN
THE INSIDE STORY OF TEXAS TECH’S FIRST BIG 12 FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
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CHAPTER ONE THE SEASON CHAPTER TWO SECOND SEASON
FOREWORD
On and off the field, Red Raiders provided a wild ride for the ages
NATHAN GIESE
THERE WAS NO WAY TO TELL
which direction this Texas Tech football season was going to go.
We saw the talent the Red Raiders assembled, how the shifting landscape of the sport favored a team making splashes through the transfer portal and being wildly successful because of it. By August 2025, it was apparent Texas Tech was going to be one of the top stories in the country.
Question was, would it be because the Red Raiders did everything they set out to do — win the Big 12 title, reach the College Football Playoff — or because they fell flat on their faces, becoming the gold standard for why these sorts of things don’t always work, that the money doesn’t always bring the kind of return the investment necessitates.
By September, it became clear it was the latter. There were team flaws, issues that popped up from
time to time. In the end, Texas Tech had a team capable of great things, and the players — one-year rentals and lifelong Red Raiders alike — had the goods to deliver on all the hyperbole that was attached to them.
Games became laughable in their predictability. Try as hard as you wanted, but you weren’t going to find a team in the Big 12 that had the talent to match the Red Raiders.
A year earlier, in November, billionaire booster Cody Campbell took to X (formerly Twitter) to gripe about officiating in the Colorado game. A fan replied that instead of complaining he should buy Texas Tech an offensive line.
“I will,” Campbell simply replied. He didn’t just get an offensive line, Campbell and The Matador Club helped provide Texas Tech with the best defensive front in the country. A year after having one of the worst defenses in the nation, Texas Tech boasted multiple firstteam All-Americans in Jacob Rodriguez
NATHAN GIESE RECENTLY celebrated his four-year anniversary with the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal after stops at the Plainview (Texas) Herald and Watertown (South Dakota) Public Opinion. Found his passion for writing in the second grade and turned it into a career. The Windom, Minnesota, native’s previous biggest career achievement was his five-year run as a student manager for the South Dakota State men’s basketball team, during which he rebounded enough to help the Jackrabbits make three NCAA tournament appearances. Still doesn’t regret packing all his belongings in his 2009 Impala to move to Texas on a whim.
OPPOSITE: After intercepting two BYU passes in the second half, junior linebacker Ben Roberts from Haslet, Texas, hoisted the Big 12’s championship belt as the title game’s most outstanding player. NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
and David Bailey. Defense was the one unit Texas Tech knew what it was going to get each and every game.
That doesn’t happen in Lubbock.
When the rematch with Brigham Young came around in the Big 12 championship game, the question was no longer “does Texas Tech have the goods to win?” It was “how many points will the Red Raiders win by?”
Even if you see the train coming from miles away, sometimes it’s hard to move out of the way because it approaches so quickly. That’s how opponents felt facing the Tech defense, and that’s what it was like covering the Red Raiders all season.
Part of me expected the other shoe to drop at some point. No way this just worked out the exact way they thought it would, right? Surely there would be a disappointing loss that knocked the Red Raiders out of the CFP or the Big 12 title game.
That never came.
With a 2025 season that ended in 2026, in the Orange Bowl rather than the Liberty Bowl (again), it’s still hard to wrap my
head around what really transpired. For example, while going through stories for this book, I completely forgot about the banning of the tortilla toss that only happened in October. So much happened in four months it could make your head spin. Hopefully this book can help put things in perspective and serve as a reminder to never assume you know what’s going to happen, in life or in sports.
Texas Tech commemorative prints are available for purchase. Scan the code to shop.
OPPOSITE: Cody Campbell, a former Texas Tech football player and its biggest booster, made the rounds before the Big 12 title game at Arlington, Texas. Cofounder and co-CEO of Double Eagle Energy Holdings, Campbell also was the chairman of the Texas Tech University Systems Board of Regents. NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
ABOVE: Draped in a championship lei, coach Joey McGuire greeted fans upon his team’s return to Lubbock several hours after the Red Raiders’ 34-7 victory over BYU at Arlington. He delivered Texas Tech its first outright conference title since 1955 in the old Border Conference. MATEO ROSILES / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
INTRODUCTION
Critics be damned, Tech owned the scoreboard and fans’ hearts
DON WILLIAMS
I’M OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER when college football games on TV were a special treat. We got one game a Saturday, maybe two. For instance, Ohio State-Michigan at noon, USC-UCLA at 3. Want another game? You went outside in the yard and played one yourself.
I looked it up once. From the time I was born until I turned 18, there were 23 Texas Tech football games televised. One of my first vivid recollections of the Red Raiders on TV is of Tech wide receiver Lawrence Williams streaking down the west sideline at Jones Stadium, waving to a beaten Texas defensive back on the way to a 77yard touchdown. Tommy Duniven threw three scoring passes to Williams that afternoon, and the Red Raiders beat the sixth-ranked Longhorns 26-3. I was 9, soon to be 10.
The year before in 1973, Tech went 11-1, beating Tennessee in
the Gator Bowl. A couple of years later, in 1976, Tech won its first eight games and finished 10-2.
It seemed the Red Raiders were always good back then. I assumed they always would be.
Au contraire.
Texas Tech’s 12-2 showing in 2025 marked the second time in 49 seasons the Red Raiders achieved a double-digit victory total. Oh, there were memorable years during the past four decades, several during the Mike Leach era.
The 1989 team holds a special place. Those Red Raiders were about my age. They were picked sixth in the Southwest Conference, and they beat four Top 20 opponents — including thrillers over Texas A&M in Lubbock and Texas in Austin. They finished 9-3 by drubbing Steve Spurrier’s Duke in the All-American Bowl. Six starters on that team began as walk-ons. Theirs was a Cinderella story for sure. The 2025 Red Raiders were cast as the
bad guys. What with the financial clout of The Matador Club and Texas Tech’s relentless pursuit of the best players in the transfer portal, the Red Raiders made enemies before they ever took the field. Outsiders who had never given Texas Tech much thought previously paid attention, wanting to see the Red Raiders fail.
DON WILLIAMS HAS covered Texas Tech football for 40 years, beginning in 1986 at the Texas Tech University Daily and since 1988 at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. He grew up an hour north of Lubbock in the Swisher County communities of Kress, Center Plains, Claytonville and Tulia. He graduated from Midland College in 1985 and Texas Tech in 1988.
OPPOSITE: Texas Tech players gathered around the Big 12 championship trophy on the AT&T Stadium stage after their 12th victory, a program record. It secured a first-round bye as the No. 4 seed in the College Football Playoff. NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
RIGHT: Left tackle Howard Sampson savored a victory cigar after anchoring the offensive line in the Big 12 championship game. A 6-foot-8, 340-pound junior transfer from North Carolina, Sampson made third-team All-Big 12. NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
OPPOSITE: Texas Tech’s 64th Masked Rider, Rose Rosas from Brady, Texas, fired up the faithful at Arlington, Texas, with her usual stirring entrance. An animal sciences major, Rosas had served as an assistant to the 62nd and 63rd Masked Riders. When she took the reins in the spring of 2025, she said: “I may not have grown up knowing what the Masked Rider was, but from the moment I saw it, I was drawn in.” She also said she hoped to inspire others as a first-generation college student and the first Hispanic Masked Rider.
JEROME MIRON / IMAGN IMAGES
Made it all the sweeter for Texas Tech fans as the Red Raiders won 12 games, won the Big 12, made the College Football Playoff and went to the Orange Bowl — all firsts for the program.
They were favored nearly every Saturday, and all 12 of their victories came by more than 21 points. For as good as the Texas Tech offense was — the Red Raiders averaged 39.4 points a game, top 10 in the FBS — defense drove the bus. A front four with David Bailey, his tag team partner in quarterback torture, Romello Height, and
tackles Lee Hunter and A.J. Holmes, each of whom earned All-America recognition, was Tech’s most decorated ever.
And yet, none of those players got as much attention as linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, who joined Bailey as a unanimous All-American and won four other national awards and finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy balloting. Rodriguez took to wearing a cowboy hat to postgame news conferences, further endearing himself to Tech fans.
Rodriguez and his fellow starting
linebackers, Ben Roberts and John Curry, were the Mustache Gang for the facial hair they started cultivating well before the season. More than a gimmick, that identity.
In the Big 12 championship game against Brigham Young, Roberts left in the first quarter after he tweaked an abdominal muscle. Thought he couldn’t run as well as he needed to and didn’t want to hurt the team. Ah, but the athletic trainers worked on him, and soon enough, back into the fray he went.
GAME NO. 1 AT LUBBOCK ARKANSAS-PINE BLUFF 7 NO. 24 TEXAS TECH 67 GAME NO. 2 AT LUBBOCK
GAME NO. 5 AT HOUSTON NO. 14 TEXAS TECH 35 HOUSTON 11 GAME NO. 6 AT LUBBOCK KANSAS 17 NO. 10 TEXAS TECH 42
9
GAME NO. 3 AT LUBBOCK OREGON STATE 14 NO. 20 TEXAS TECH 45
GAME NO. 7 AT TEMPE NO. 8 TEXAS TECH 22
GAME NO. 4 AT SALT LAKE CITY NO. 16 TEXAS TECH 34 NO. 18 UTAH 10
STATE 26 GAME NO. 8 AT LUBBOCK OKLAHOMA STATE 0 NO. 15 TEXAS TECH 42
GAME NO. 11 AT LUBBOCK CENTRAL FLORIDA 9 NO. 8 TEXAS TECH 48 GAME NO. 12 AT MORGANTOWN NO. 7 TEXAS TECH 49 WEST VIRGINIA 0
The Season
BOLSTERED BY THE TRANSFER PORTAL, RED RAIDERS EXPECTED TO CONTEND — INSTEAD, THEY DOMINATED
OPPOSITE: A Masked Rider statue resided in the lobby of the new Womble Football Center, part of a $242 million investment in the program. The center included a barbershop, podcast studio and recovery lounge. NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
ARKANSAS 39, TEXAS TECH 26
2024 LIBERTY BOWL AT SIMMONS BANK LIBERTY STADIUM, MEMPHIS, TENN.
Propensity to surrender big plays — 2024’s Achilles’ heel — leads to loss in Liberty Bowl
DON WILLIAMS
TEXAS TECH WON EIGHT games in the 2024 season, but the Red Raiders weren’t perfect. Far from it.
They were especially lacking on defense, and it cost defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter and defensive passing game coordinator Marcel Yates their jobs. The vulnerability showed up again in the Liberty Bowl as Arkansas big-played Tech to pieces and walked away with a 39-26 victory.
“Some of our things that showed up all year long showed up again,” said Tech coach Joey McGuire, whose team finished 8-5. “We gave up too many big plays, and the times we haven’t played well, that’s what we’ve done.”
Arkansas (7-6), playing without its leading rusher, three starting interior linemen and its top three pass catchers, nevertheless rolled up 559 yards and
nearly every Razorbacks touchdown stemmed from a big play. Quarterback Taylen Green was selected the most valuable player after passing for 341 yards and two TDs and rushing for 81 yards and a TD.
“I thought he had a great game,” said linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, selected Tech’s outstanding defensive player.
“The kind of stuff that we knew they liked to do, he did, but he just did it at a really high level.”
Arkansas built a 21-3 lead with touchdowns on its first three series, bolstered by a 70-yard run, a 56-yard pass and a 94-yard TD pass.
“The first one was a misfit, which that’s going to give you big plays in the run game,” McGuire said. “The second one was miscommunication, and then the third one was just we got beat. (Green) outplayed us.”
Tech was next-to-last in the FBS in pass defense this season. The top
cornerback, senior Bralyn Lux, opted out of the game in a decision not revealed until just before kickoff. Tech announced at the same time that Doak Walker Award semifinalist Tahj Brooks also was skipping the game.
While Brooks watched from the sideline, freshmen J’Koby Williams and Cameron Dickey rushed for 123 and 74 yards, respectively, each on 15 carries. Freshman quarterback Will Hammond, making his first start after Behren Morton underwent shoulder surgery, completed 20 of 34 passes for 280 yards and a touchdown, but he was intercepted twice.
“Man, they’re going to be really good next season,” Arkansas defensive tackle Cameron Ball said. “The young quarterback, he was really talented. You can tell he was comfortable until we made him uncomfortable. The running backs, we were focusing on the head guy, Tahj Brooks. Unfortunately,
he didn’t play, so the young guys, we knew that they were coming in fired up. They had a couple of good runs, but overall we came together and we stopped them.”
Tech got within 21-19 by dominating the second quarter. Arkansas retaliated with 18 unanswered points and held Tech scoreless in the second half until Hammond hit Coy Eakin for a 15-yard touchdown with 3:06 to go.
So, what did we learn? Liberty Bowl 2024 will be remembered as the bowl in which the teams that played Dec. 27 barely resembled the teams suiting up a month earlier. Williams and Dickey have some juice but should not be expected to deliver Brooks’ level of production, not right away on an every-game basis anyway. Hammond did OK, but his showing cooled the jets for fans expecting him to use the bowl as liftoff for unseating Morton.
OPPOSITE: Making his first start after Tahj Brooks sat out for personal reasons, true freshman J’Koby Williams celebrated a 54-yard touchdown run in the second quarter. With 123 yards rushing, he received the Liberty Bowl’s offensive player of the game honors despite being on the losing squad. CHRIS DAY / THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
AUG. 30, 2025 W RECORD 1-0 (0-0)
NO. 24 TEXAS TECH 67, ARKANSAS-PINE BLUFF 7
OPENER AT JONES AT&T STADIUM, LUBBOCK, TEXAS
Reloaded Red Raiders answer the opening bell with aplomb in a 60-point smackdown
DON WILLIAMS
SKYLER GILL-HOWARD
came to the interview room in full scarlet uniform, even the defensive tackle’s shoulder pads still strapped atop his sculpted biceps and triceps. Rarely do you find a college football player in full pads a half-hour after a game — and five hours after it started — but it didn’t take much time to develop pride in wearing the uniform these days.
Especially when you went from Upper Iowa to Northern Illinois to a Texas Tech program that had generated an uncommon amount of offseason attention. Now, it’s hard to draw sweeping conclusions from thrashing Arkansas-Pine Bluff, but the Red Raiders left their fans eager to see more after a 67-7 romp to open the season at Jones AT&T Stadium.
Hey, that’s a darn sight better than how they felt after watching Abilene
Christian nearly beat the home team last year.
“I think tonight was a good example of what this team is capable of, putting basically a whole new team together in January,” said Gill-Howard, one of 22 transfers. “It’s just amazing to get out here and play a game. That’s why I still have this jersey on. I don’t want to take it off, because I just love being a Red Raider.”
A lot of guys did the jersey proud on opening night. Behren Morton, limited to only 1½ quarters because of a leg injury, hit 16 of 18 passes for 201 yards and four touchdowns. Two went to new tight end Terrance Carter Jr.
Sophomore running backs Cameron Dickey and J’Koby Williams, eager to show out after the season-ending injury to stablemate Quinten Joyner, combined for 154 yards on 18 carries with a TD apiece.
The answer to the preseason prop “who’ll score the Red Raiders’ first
touchdown?” was Reggie Virgil, another of the much-discussed transfer crop. It came with 11:44 left in the first quarter on a 9-yard pass from Morton, capping a four-play, 39-yard drive.
When the Red Raiders got the ball last with 12 seconds left in the game, they had scored on all 11 possessions: nine TDs and two field goals. They racked up 608 yards — 314 through the air, 294 on the ground; how’s that for balance? — with no turnovers and not much sloppiness.
Midway through the second quarter, Morton took a low hit from pressure off the edge and suffered what Tech coach Joey McGuire described as a hyperextended knee. It left Morton gimpy enough to take the rest of the night off, but not enough to make McGuire sound worried.
Will Hammond and Mitch Griffis filled the remaining QB snaps, Hammond running for a 64-yard touchdown and throwing a TD pass to Leyton Stone.
All in all, it was about as good a first
night as season-ticket holders and The Matador Club bankrollers could have hoped for new offensive coordinator Mack Leftwich.
And for as efficiently as Leftwich’s side operated, new defensive coordinator Shiel Wood’s troops might have been even more impressive, if for no other reason than how the defensive front hounded UAPB quarterback Christian Peters. Early on, Peters got blind-side blasted by edge rusher Romello Height. Peters got to his feet and repeatedly gave a palms-up pleading gesture as if beseeching his protection: A little help here, guys!
Not much was forthcoming.
At least Mother Nature saw to it that the Golden Lions’ quarterback was subjected to a little less harassment. Storms rolled in right as the second quarter ended with Tech up 47-0. After the 20-minute halftime, a one-hour, 24-minute weather delay ensued, which included a gully-washer.
OPPOSITE: After a 9-yard punt by Arkansas-Pine Bluff on its opening possession, the Red Raiders needed only four plays to score their first points of the season. Miami (Ohio) transfer Reggie Virgil was the first man in the end zone, scoring on a 9-yard pass from Behren Morton after only 3:16. NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
OPPOSITE: Tight end Terrance Carter Jr., a redshirt junior from Killeen, Texas, via the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, dived for pay dirt in his first game as a Red Raider.
NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
LEFT: Carter scored twice for the Red Raiders in the first quarter, eight minutes apart — on a 21-yard pass to make it 14-0 and a 9-yard pass for a 23-0 lead.
NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
ABOVE: J’Koby Williams’s six rushes against Arkansas-Pine Bluff produced 56 yards, including a 5-yard touchdown and a 20-yard gain. NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
DEC. 6, 2025 W RECORD 12-1 (8-1)
NO. 6 TEXAS TECH 34 , NO. 11 BYU 7
BIG 12 CHAMPIONSHIP AT AT&T STADIUM, ARLINGTON, TEXAS
Ailing Roberts writes his football legend as Tech captures its first Big 12 championship
DON WILLIAMS
THE MOST OUTSTANDING
player award winner of the Big 12 championship game wasn’t feeling so great midway through the first quarter.
Linebacker Ben Roberts suffered a lower abdominal injury on Texas Tech’s first defensive series. For the rest of the half, he was out of the game, back in, back out again — an inauspicious beginning, as it turned out, to an unforgettable performance.
In the second half, Roberts made two interceptions — a championship game record — and broke up a fourth-down pass, helping Texas Tech put away Brigham Young 34-7 at AT&T Stadium. One of his picks and the turnover on downs set up touchdowns that were critical in Tech winning its first Big 12 title in the 30-year history of the conference.
“His ab, his hip was really bothering him,” coach Joey McGuire said.
To the rescue came Mike Ramirez, the head athletic trainer.
“Man, Mike and his staff got it loosened up,” McGuire said, “and then all of a sudden you got two picks in the second half by this guy. So just hats
13-7 when Roberts dropped into coverage, read Bear Bachmeier’s eyes and picked off a throw for Chase Roberts. He ran it back nine yards to the BYU 11, and Cameron Dickey scored on the next play.
“Man, Mike and his staff got it loosened up. And then all of a sudden you got two picks in the second half by this guy.
So just hats off to our training staff for getting him back in the game. ”
JOEY MCGUIRE ON BEN ROBERTS’ INJURY
off to our training staff for getting him back in the game.”
Roberts’ first interception came late in the third quarter with the outcome still hanging in the balance. Tech led
The lead was 24-7 early in the fourth quarter when Roberts cut in front of a throw for Jojo Phillips. The Red Raiders (12-1) failed to cash in after that interception — Stone Harrington missed a
49-yard field goal — but Roberts had the hot hands again on the next defensive series.
BYU, its back to the wall, went for a fourth-and-4 from its 37, and Roberts broke up another Bachmeier throw over the middle. Four plays later, facing a fourth down of their own, Coy Eakin turned a short pass from Behren Morton into a 28-yard touchdown for a 31-7 lead.
Roberts said he was hurt on the first series, tweaking his lower abdomen on a play where Bachmeier scrambled.
“I kept trying to play,” he said. “I just couldn’t run full speed, so I didn’t want to hurt the team, so I was like, ‘Put Brock (Golwas) in.’ I’m proud of him for what he did.
“I just did everything I could to stretch it out and fix it up. The trainers really helped me at halftime. They got it all heated up and relaxed, and I was ready to go in the second half.”
Jacob Rodriguez, selected a day
OPPOSITE: When the storm of confetti subsided, linebacker Jacob Rodriguez hoisted the Big 12 championship trophy in the home of the Dallas Cowboys. Next to Rodriguez was fellow mustached linebacker Ben Roberts, who picked off two passes and was selected the game’s most outstanding player. NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
ABOVE: Cory Eakin (right) celebrated with fellow wide receiver Caleb Douglas after a trip to the end zone. Eakin, a redshirt junior from Stephenville, Texas, scored on a 33-yard pass with 2:34 left in the first half (which gave Texas Tech its first lead at 10-7) and on a 28-yard pass with 7:03 left in the game (which made the lead 31-7).
NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
ABOVE RIGHT: Quarterback Behren Morton eyed the BYU defense while deciding whether to change the play call. Morton completed 20 of 33 passes for 215 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.
NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
RIGHT: Defensive tackle Lee Hunter, a strapping load at 6-feet-4 and 330 pounds, carried linebacker John Curry off the field like a sack of potatoes. Curry, checking in at “only” 6-2, 235, received the ride after forcing a BYU fumble in the fourth quarter that defensive tackle Jayden Cofield recovered.
NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
ABOVE LEFT: Running back Cameron Dickey picked his way to an 11-yard touchdown run with 3:21 left in the third quarter. Dickey’s TD came one play after Ben Roberts’ first interception. Terrance Carter Jr. caught the conversion. Texas Tech owned a two-score lead at 21-7. NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
ABOVE: Wide receiver Reggie Virgil played cameraman during the Texas Tech’s on-the-field celebration. Virgil caught a game-high eight passes for a game-high 86 yards. NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
LEFT: Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire, clutching the Big 12 trophy on a makeshift stage, led a Raider Power chant that entertained ESPN sideline reporter Katie George. NATHAN GIESE / AVALANCHE-JOURNAL