Game Preview: Sam Houston vs. Texas Tech

Game Details

Good Guys: Texas Tech Red Raiders (3-0, 1-0)
Bad Guys: Sam Houston Bearkats (1-2, 0-0)
Where: Galaxy Stadium | Lubbock, Texas
When: Saturday, September 26th @ 11:00 am
TV & Streaming: TNT
Radio: The Varsity Network
The Line: Texas Tech -34.5
Game Notes: Texas Tech | Sam Houston
Weather Report: Sunny, High 90 Low 65

Key Players for Houston

#8 QB Landyn Locke (6-4/220): Lock is completing 68% of his passes, 9.0 yards per attempt and averaging 324 yards a game with 9 touchdowns and just 1 pick. Not a runner at all and if I had to guess, he’s a decent athlete, but those are sack numbers. I’m excited to watch some video

#22 RB Alton McCaskill (6-2/220): McCaskill splits time, but he carries the load with about 12 carries and 47 yards a game with just 1 touchdown. He does have 7 catches, but just 11 yards, so maybe he’s not getting the ball in space.

#7 WR Grady O’Neill (5-9/170) & #87 TE Max Whisner (6-5/255): O’Neill has 17 receptions for 192 yards, about 64 yards a game. The next closest player has just 9 receptions, which is Chris Reed. Whisner has 8 catches and just 62 yards, so he’s likely a bailout type of tight end, but that’s basically an offensive lineman and will be interested to see how much he’s utilized

#97 DT Dylan Frazier (6-5/280): Just 8 tackles from his defensive tackle spot, but he already has 2 passes broken up and a quarterback hurry from the DT spot. Lots of height here.

#21 LB Dean Ford (6-1/230): Sam Houston’s leading tackler with 16, 1.5 tackles for a loss, and a pass broken up.

#13 S Railyn Adams (6-0/185): Adams has an interception already along with 13 tackles, a pass broken up and half a tackle for a loss.

Seth C’s Thoughts on the Game

Advantages, but Testing the Right Spots. Texas Tech should have a fairly large talent gap with Sam Houston, but the good news for Texas Tech, and I do think this is good news, is that Sam Houston is a very good passing team. Granted, the competition hasn’t been great, but that’s okay. I think that Shiel Wood sort of welcomes the ability to sort of tweak this a bit more and make sure he’s got things exactly how he wants them. It is a tune-up game and the last tune-up game, Abilene Christian, didn’t exactly turn out that way. This team needs to be about improvements and being tangibly better each day.

Explosive Plays. The Texas Tech offense made a really nice improvement in explosive plays last week against a quality opponent. You never know whether or not those explosive plays are “real” if it is against a lesser opponent, but Houston’s a quality team and those were real plays. And explosive offenses are the best offenses (along with other things, but being explosive is one of them). I’m encouraged between the duo of Hammond and Johnson and I do think that Carter and Hudson and Eakin will be in the mix as well. I’m ready for them to step up.

OL Backups. We saw a back-up supplant a senior starter in Cash Cleveland for Hunter Zambrano. McGuire said that Zambrano will work in his more natural position, tackle. But just seeing some glimpses of Daniel Sill move some people, I may be more excited to see these young pups get some time against Sam Houston. And this isn’t one of those, I hope they play because it’s a blowout. Nope. I hope they play because they might push some of these starters who are complacent.

Play Efficiency. The Texas Tech defense gave up some really long drives to Houston and couldn’t force Houston off the field. One of the things that Sam Houston is good at is getting positive yards on plays and moving the sticks. Another good opportunity for the defense to start to figure things out and not allow big 3rd downs and not allow chunks on 1st down that gives the offense so many more options on 2nd and 3rd downs.

Flex. It would be nice to see Texas Tech flex just a bit, show some dominance a bit and maybe say who you are. I actually think that Sam Houston is decent but it’s time for the defense to stand up and it’s also time for the offense to stretch their legs. I mentioned that Sam Houston is probably better than expected, they lost to Troy 24-21 and Tulsa 23-17, which is a better showing that Oklahoma State had. Sam Houston is going to throw the ball until they can’t. You can look at the stats below and I’m surprised they are as lopsided as they appear because I don’t think the gap is that deep.

Video Notes

The Nicholls defender absolutely gets his hips all screwed up on that first play. Devastating . . . Sam Houston is rushing 3 with little intent to rush the quarterback. I don’t know if we’ll see a lot of that, but it would not surprise me. They do show 5 on the line, but drop 2 of those 5 . . . The Bearkats have their 5 offensive linemen plus a back and a tight end to help with any sort of rush and then they just send a receiver deep with one-on-one coverage. There’s only 3 receivers on that route . . . the touchdowns on 2nd and 10 sure is a pretty play but that takes a bit of time to develop . . . hats off to those receivers who are making tough catches . . . the 1st and 10 at the 11 yard line, that receiver has a killer double-move with the DB just falling asleep on that play . . . Nicholls decided that they were not going to tackle that Saturday . . . What a thrashing . . .

Uniforms:

Best colors in the game 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/wIIYGZjLmn

— Texas Tech Football (@TexasTechFB) September 24, 2026

Stats:

Sharp Football

CFB Depth

BCF Toys & ESPN

Definitions:
PPA (Predicted Points Added): It looks at the down, distance, and field position before a run play and compares it to the down, distance, and field position after the play. Passing is usually more efficient than running in modern football. Rushing PPA helps analysts see which teams actually run effectively instead of just wasting downs. For passing, a successful completion that gains a first down or moves closer to scoring adds positive points.

Havoc Rate: Bill Connelly—that measures how often a defense makes a disruptive play. It is calculated by taking total havoc plays and dividing them by total defensive snaps.

Line Yards: Line Yards is an advanced football statistic that estimates how many rushing yards an offensive line produces on a run play, separate from the running back’s own skill.

Stuff Rate: Stuff rate in American football is the percentage of rushing plays that a defense stops at or behind the line of scrimmage.

Power Success: Power Success is an advanced football metric that measures the percentage of short-yardage running plays where an offense successfully gets a first down or a touchdown.

FEI: (Fremeau Efficiency Index team ratings) Opponent-adjusted possession efficiency data representing the scoring advantage per non-garbage possession a team would be expected to have on a neutral field against an average opponent

Poll & Prediction

QuizMaker

Like a lot of you, and despite my wish that the team flex a bit, I think the 34 points is a lot against Sam Houston and so I’ll take those points, but still pick Texas Tech to win comfortably. I do think we will see a back-up quarterback for Texas Tech and I don’t mean that in an injured or bad way.

Oh, and apparently, top of the mornin’ to ya. Maybe Joey is a long lost brother to Toby!