The Basics

Teams: Texas Tech Red Raiders (1-0, 0-0) vs. Oregon State Beavers (0-1, 0-0)
Date & Time: Saturday, September 12, 2026 @ 6:30 p.m.
Location: Reser Stadium | Corvallis, Oregon
TV & Streaming: CBS
Line: Texas Tech -26.5 Open at -29.5

JaMarcus Shephard is the new head coach for Oregon State. Shephard was previously an assistant head coach and co-offensive coordinator at Alabama for 2 years prior to his arrival in Corvallis. Fun-fact: Shephard played at DePauw, which I didn’t know was a college. DePauw is in Greencastle, Indiana and had their first football season in 1884. That’s not a typo. They are the Tigers.

Mitch Dahlen is the offensive coordinator falling under the Kalen DeBoer coaching tree, having followed him around a bit, which is why he’s probably the offensive coordinator with Shepherd as he was the quarterbacks coach at Alabama. Dahlen was a quarterback at Utah and Southern utah, so he’s pretty comfortable working with quarterbacks and maybe gets quite a bit out of them.

Defensive coordinator Mike MacIntyre is maybe the gray-hair for Oregon State. His resume is lengthy, but hasn’t spent a ton of time at any one place. Most recently, he was the defensive coordinator at Memphis, then FIU, and then a defensive assistant at Mississippi State before landing at Oregon State. He was a head coach for a spell at San Jose State with an overall record of 58-89. He’s a secondary guy, so expect an emphasis on that position group.

This is a non-sarcastic question and it is one that I really don’t know the answer to. I’ve already seen folks upset witht he offensive playcalling. I’m going to plead ignorance because I really don’t know, but how do you know when to blame playcalling and when to blame quarterback play and when to blame recieivers not getting open? I said it before and I’ll say it here, I don’t know and it is difficult for me to determine. Maybe I’m not a nuanced enough fan to know when it’s the OC and the quarterback. It seems as if Hammond’s misses were self-inflicted and he forced more passes than he should have. I was fine with being patient and literally just taking what the defense gave the offense, but sometimes that’s a difficult ask for a quarterback that’s ready to just let the ball fly.

The News:

Texas Tech Football: No. 12 Texas Tech visits Oregon State Saturday & Game Notes

ESPN: Sources: Big 12 withdraws federal suit against Texas Tech

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams: Mack Leftwich, Texas Tech football hunt for key to open up red zone

“We’ve got to execute better,” offensive coordinator Mack Leftwich said Monday, Sept. 7. “Got to have a better plan on first and second down. Going into it, the whole focus was trying to stay out of third-and-long.

“The drives that we weren’t successful down there, it was third-and-12, third-and-12 and third-and-13, so I’ve got to call better plays on first and second down to put us in good situations where we’re not down there in those third-and-extra long opportunities.”

Red Raider Sports’ L. Jordan: Peyton Morgan Takes Over Defensive Green Dot Duties

Going into a tough away atmosphere with a young group is never easy, but Wood says they’ll be relying on their confidence in their abilities.

“We just want to go up there and play hard and play with a lot of confidence in terms of our assignment, our technique, our fundamentals, and just have a sense of urgency. Whenever you go on the road, it doesn’t matter who you play. It’s difficult to win on the road, and so I think just having the confidence that we’re going to play hard, and then knowing that when the momentum shifts against us, we’ve got to find a way to dig in and just be a ‘what’s next’ mindset and get it flipped back. I think those are things that’ll help us on the road this week.”

Red Raider Sports’ Lane Selph: ‘Got a little aggressive there’: Mack Leftwich takes responsibility for Texas Tech’s red-zone struggles

Leftwich acknowledged that some of those bad redzone situations were created by his own play-calling. For Mack, rather than sticking with what Texas Tech had been executing well, he said there were a couple of instances where he became too aggressive trying to create a big play.

“There were two plays for sure where I maybe called something that I was trying to hit a big play and got a little aggressive there for sure,” Leftwich said. “So just doing stuff we’re good at and letting our guys go execute and have easy answers on the play is kind of what we’ve talked about doing.”

The Non-Transcript:

Head Coach Joey McGuire:

• Scout Team Players of the Week – Offense: Loic Tshibangu; Defense: Dylan Singleton; Special Teams: Imari Jehiel
• First road game and good to get a road game early. Give a good look and to travel. Will be a great experience. Jett Carpenter has said that if there’s an extra ticket to give it to him, he’ll have a large contingent.
• Extremely impressed with Oregon State, Coach Shepherd and their quarterback. He can move and is accurate. Will be a great test. Probably not happy with the outcome, but happy with the way they played and fought to the end. They are going to be excited to play at home.
• The way they attack the defense, the young safeties will be tested. Peyton Morgan, Oliver Miles, Malik Esquerra, and Jordan Rogers.
• We dropped a pick 6 and that would have been a touchdown and we talk about making your layups and Brice Pollock intercepts that ball 9 of 10 times. There were some layups on both sides of the ball and we didn’t make the play. We tackled well and happy with how the safeties played in space. We will be a 0 on the turnover margin, but we didn’t create enough turnovers. Pressured the quarterback, but didn’t produce turnovers and get takeaways. Got to be better in the red zone.
• Castellanos gets another week to work and he had more of a package and a lot of it was in the low red zone, but I do think the more he feels more comfortable we’ll see him more.
• Trey White won’t play this week. LaDamion Guyton should play, and will be another weapon off the edge.
• Didn’t say enough about Will Karoll who averaged 50.5 and he calls it the big ball. He did a good job. Hunter Zambrano played well. Really strong in the linebacker room, John, Austin and Ben showed up.
• Malik and Payton. Did some good things. Want to be on the right page, if they are getting in on a tackle, they limited those big plays. Especially those boundary safeties. Payton especially on special teams. Will see a good mix of Oliver, he started the 2nd half and played well.
• Hammond is a film rat, he’s probably watched Oregon State 3 of 4 times. He loves preparing and Tommy and Kirk do as well. Those are vet quarterbacks and spend a lot of time with Mack and Lindsey. I was proud of Will, he wasn’t over-hyped and calm, until the interception, he was really efficient. We probably should have pushed the ball down the field a bit. Taking some shots down the field. Us getting those calls out for him to understand, he needs to understand taking a shot.
• They had been through some tough games and lost some close games. If they have a healthy deep snapper they beat Houston and Fresno State. They are healthy and the enthusiasm and effort says alot about Coach Shepherd. He comes off a great staff. Watching those guys play, they play hard. They are a good football team and they made it close. They are going to be excited. They played well on the road against a ranked team. The quarterback has moved up a level was impressive.
• There was one where he came off of Kenny too soon and the clock going off on his head and he’ll feel more comfortable. If he had that ball back, he would have run for a 1st down. His knee and body felt great. He had a couple of times to run in a straight line and go down.
• Oregon state freshmen had some big plays, they’ve got guys that can make plays. They play a lot of people on defense. Maybe that changes some in the secondary. We might not see some of those secondary guys. They had some guys that didn’t play so maybe they get those guys back. We sort of solved our road issues except for one and we need to play well on the road.
• Houston does a good job of pressuring the quarterback. Their run game is deciving, but there were 4 sacks. Their running backs had a good day. Houston does pressure you on 3rd down and being able to handle that pressure. Houston had some good screens drawn up and they ran them right into a DE dropping out. It is a mixture of game 1 and Houston being good on defense.
• Some of it is a mixture of getting our quarterback involved in the game, we had so many palys to pass and then to run. Finding out things that Hammond does well. The running game will continue to grow, thought they had great ball security and physical in picking up blitzes. They also had catches out of the backfield.
• I go back to Keith Patterson, one of the original guys running the drop 8, when you drop 8 you can limit explosive runs. The first touch that Q had, he broke a tackle, it is definitely something the number of runs in a game, that we’ll continue to see those guys be explosive.
• It is tough, we played a good number of receivers, and 3 tight ends and only 1 ball. Getting Hammond comfortable with the offense and create explosive plays. Have to be better on 1st and 2nd down and some of those were good blitzes that we ran into. LSU blowing out Clemson and after all of the stuff that was talked about, and week 1 to week 2 make the biggest jumps of the season is because of that. Six possessions where there was more offense out there and more if we catch the pick-6 and jump on the fumble. If we don’t have 12 men on the field that’s another possession.
• The play before Jamond Mathis’ 1st sack he should have had back-to-back sacks, there was a call on Jalen Jones that could have gone either way, I’ve always told officials in that they set the tone. Jamond should have had to back sacks. I sent a text to our head of officials, it is a mixed crew, American and Big 12, I thought that crew did a good job and they did communicate.
• He has spent more time one-on-one with Lindsey and Mack to get a grasp and he’s a smart kid. He had Gus’ offense at Florida State and BC’s offense. He’s picked it up, there’s a confidence when he comes in the play. There’s going to be a lot of zone read and power that we can do.
• The messaging was different and any time that you can play defense home or away, that had a big part of it. When you get into an offensive shootout you hold your breath because a dropped ball can change a game. That Oklahoma State game I’m telling Kittley that we have to score every possession. We play really good defense on the road.

I had AI summarize the two coordinators:

Defensive Coordinator Shiel Wood:

• Young Safeties: Pleased with the performance of young safeties Malik and Payton in their first start, noting their open-field tackling and communication [31:31].
• Oregon State’s Passing Offense: Prepared for Oregon State’s deep passing attack after watching their high-yardage game against Houston [32:15].
• Linebacker & Pass-Rush Depth: Highlighted strong rotational play from Jamon Matthysse, Corey Plat Jr., and Brock Gowens to keep players fresh [33:21].
• Coverage Details: Addressed defensive pass-interference penalties, stressing the importance of controlling releases at the line of scrimmage [34:44].

Offensive Coordinator Mack Leftwich:

• Red Zone Execution: Stressed the importance of better play-calling and performance on 1st and 2nd down to avoid 3rd-and-long situations in the red zone [44:53].
• QB Will Hammond’s Debut: Praised Hammond’s calm demeanor, early efficiency (14-for-14 start), and resilience following an interception [45:46].
• Offensive Line & Run Game: Noted zero sacks allowed on 30+ dropbacks [47:22]. Expressed confidence in the 3-man running back rotation (J’Koby Williams, Cam Dickey, Quinton Joyner) to build explosive plays as the season continues [48:41].
• Clean Operational Execution: Highlighted a clean game with zero pre-snap, delay of game, or substitution penalties despite heavy personnel rotations [54:09].

The Ride:

This Week in the Big 12 & National Games of the Week

Big 12 Game of the Week: The Border Showdown AND the Cy-Hawk Series all in the same week. Also nice games with Arizona State at TAMU, an important conference game with Arizona and BYU, and Arkansas traveling to Salt Lake City to take on Utah.

Missouri @ Kansas 9/11 @ 7:00 pm on FOX
Oregon @ Oklahoma State 9/12 @ 11:00 am on ESPN
Arizona State @ Texas A&M 9/12 @ 11:00 am on ABC
Washington State @ Kansas State 9/12 @ 11:00 am on TNT
UT Martin @ West Virginia 9/12 @ 12:00 pm on ESPN+
Arizona @ BYU 9/12 @ 2:30 pm on FOX
Weber State @ Colorado 9/12 @ 2:30 pm on ESPN+
UCF @ Pittsburgh 9/12 @ 2:30 pm on ESPN2
Southern @ Houston 9/12 @ 6:00 pm on ESPN+
Western Carolina @ Cincinnati 9/12 @ 6:00 pm on ESPN+
Iowa State @ Iowa 9/12 @ 6:30 pm on NBC
Prairie View A&M @ Baylor 9/12 @ 7:00 p.m. on ESPN+
Grambling @ TCU 9/12 @ 7:00 p.m. on ESPN+
Arkansas @ Utah 9/12 @ 9?15 pm on ESPN

National Games of the Week: After Michigan’s disaster of a game against Western Michigan, it would not be a surprise at all to see Oklahoma leave Ann arbor with a win. The Sooners were favored by 5. The biggest game is obviously Ohio State in Austin to take on Texas. The Longhorns are favored by 1.5.

Oklahoma @ Michigan 9/12 @ 11:00 am on FOX
Tennessee @ Georgia Tech 9/12 @ 6:00 pm on ESPN
Ohio State @ Texas 9/12 @ 6:30 pm on ABC

Also, the most beautiful play from the weekend.

This might be the greatest punt I’ve ever seen in my life. pic.twitter.com/PfB3CYxhoN

— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) September 7, 2026

Education

This is going to be my go-to for education for a bit. These are bite-sized videos that are pretty easy to digest (going with a whole food them here) and I love the explanations. I hope you watch these.