The Basics

Teams: Texas Tech Red Raiders (6-1, 3-1) vs. Arizona Wildcats (6-1, 3-1)
Date & Time: Saturday, October 31st, 2026 @ 11:00 a.m.
Location: Galaxy Stadium | Lubbock, TX
TV & Streaming: ESPN
Line: Texas Tech -3.5 Open at -7.5

Arizona is led by head coach Brent Brennan and he’s done a really excellent job thus far in his 3rd year. Seth Doege, your former Red Raider quarterback, is the offensive coordinator and he runs the ball at a 53% rate with a pass rate of 47% and gets off a play every 29.6 seconds. Danny Gonzales is the defensive coordinator and he runs a 4-25 or a 3-3-5 depending on the situation with a blitz rate of 49.3%.

If you were curious about Texas Tech’s rate for those things, Mack Leftwich runs at a 60% rate and passes at a rate of 40% and with a play every 27.4 seconds. Shiel Wood runs a 3-4 and has a blitz rate of 43.6%.

What are we to make of Cody Campbell tweeting that there’s no excuse or reason to lose a game like this and that Texas Tech has to be better? The first takeaway from me is why say anything? But I also think I have a completely different personality than Campbell and that when I take a loss, I’m not looking to be in the spotlight. Campbell’s statement isn’t anything original or anything that we all weren’t thinking so I guess I thought, what’s the point? And I’m not completely sure to be honest.

And this is something that some of the guys at The Ticket in Dallas have said (not an original thought about Campbell and how big of a role he plays for the university and the athletic department), which is that Campbell is maybe the defactor owner of the football program. After doing this for so many years, I tend to believe that no one person is bigger than the Texas Tech football program. But maybe things change. It is my hope that this isn’t or doesn’t become true. That’s not to say that I think that Campbell has any ill-intent because I think he loves Texas Tech (and I don’t use the word “love” lightly here), but I also think that whatever makes up a program is bigger than any one person, coach, or player.

I also asked 2 people at work who asked me about Campbell’s tweet. I asked if they though that Campbell was taking ownership in some sort of way for the loss or making himself the story and they both felt like he was inserting himself into something that maybe he didn’t need to. They both didn’t have positive attitudes towards Campbell in the first place to be fair, but they both didn’t understand why he felt like HE needed to make a comment.

The News:

Texas Tech Football: No. 13 Tech, No. 22 Arizona collide Saturday for Top 25 thriller & Game Notes

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams: Texas Tech football meltdown at Cincy: A one-off or tip of an iceberg?

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams: Making sense of a no-show at Cincy | Texas Tech football Q&A

Red Raider Sports’ L. Jordan: Mack Leftwich on Will Hammond, Castellanos and Changes

Red Raider Sports’ Mason Turnbow: Shiel Wood breaks down Texas Tech’s defensive struggles, previews Arizona’s explosive offense

Red Raider Sports’ Lane Selph: Joey McGuire, Mack Leftwich address Will Hammond’s inconsistency, potential changes to Texas Tech’s Offense

Oregon State Watch: The Beavers were off this week.

The Non-Transcript

Head Coach Joey McGuire:

• Glad we are playing at home. Electric on offense and very good on defense. Only loss to BYU. Need to make this place, and the fans have done it, a home field advantage. Need to feel us from the alumni to the students. The band is incredible and on 3rd down, need to tally up false starts.
• With Saturday’s loss, looked at the power point and exactly the same thing I was going to tell them this year. Have turned this into a 5 game season with no room for error. Utah, us, Arizona, BYU, and Oklahoma State all have 1 loss and a team like Houston who is really good. Come down who can play the best every Saturday. Will see you Saturday at 11 a.m.
• Castellanos, a lot of issues, but no excuse. We had 1 higher red and one 1 lower red and a false start with the running back and a grounding that drove us out of the red. Something we are working on with him, but across the board, everyone is under evaluation on how we can play better. If you would have told me that Stone would have missed a 38-yarder, our punter would average 31 yards, and our defense would give up 250 yards rushing, would not have believed you.
• I thought we were ready to go, we had a weird week, Sampson, Church, and McMath had some flu that went through the team, but had a good Wednesday and Friday. I thought we came out early and stopped the run and moved the football, minus the turnover. For the 1st time in a long time, I said it to Don after the game, the Texas game year 2, Baylor game year 3, that game felt like that, got on our heels and did not respond as a program.
• It starts with a sense of urgency, the call is coming off the sidelines. Defensively there are times where the defense will go on the field off the sideline and get the call, but the offense is getting the call off the sideline. It’s bad football. I can take my 19 years as a head coach and in a calendar year have had 2 delay of games coming off the sideline. It is embarrassing.
• Hammond’s performance is a roller coaster, get a lot of ups and downs, get a great 1st half against Arizona state and then Cincinnati. Nobody cares how I feel or how he feels. He is here to win football games and play better. We as coaches have to do a good job of not putting to much on him and he has to respond.
• Third down is a mixture of longer 3rd downs and that means you weren’t good on 1st or 2nd down, not catching catchable balls. Floating balls. There’s no reason for Micah Hudson to have to jump up to catch that ball. The 2-point conversion needs to be a better ball. What’s showing up in the game is not showing up in practice.
• Dickey should be good to go, he’s been cleared to practice tomorrow. He’ll get indy and scouts and we should get him for a full Wednesday. He looked really good last week. Will be really good to have him back next week.
• I think we look at it as a whole, it is October 31st, we’ve played well late October and November, have played extremely well. It is a belief in each other and continuing to try to get better and that’s what we will lean on. Ben Roberts, Sheridan Wilson, Trey White, John Curry, they are pissed. You can turn on the tape and we did not play well. Didn’t have great effort and that’s frustrating. Fortunate to have a strong group of leaders. Go 1-0 and we control everything. You are starting to say what the Big 12 has been saying for years, which it is a very good conference and anybody in college football can beat anyone in any given week.
• Seth Doege is doing a phenomenal job. There is cross over because he and Clay have been on the same staff. Starts with the quarterback who is extremely talented and that drives everything. Seth is doing a great job. He has created a true identity on offense. It is going to be a real test and they have physical running backs.
• They are one of the better offenses, but also passing. The frustration for us on the defensive side of the ball, we try our best to make teams unconventional. We’ve done it at a high level last year and this year, which is stop the run. We had more missed assignments in 3-4 games than we did against Cincinnati. 155 yards came off of 5 plays, we had guys that were getting cut out of their gap or not playing the defense that was called. Very uncharacteristic.
• Probably not that simple and start cutting full field reads to half field reads, that’s one thing. That’s a lot of college football. Double slants when the ball gets out fast, he’s done well at that. On 3 of the 4 sacks there was not any pressure, but there wasn’t anyone open. But we had 1 guy at the receiver position run over 20 mph in that game. In our receiver group, we had all guys run over 20 mph. Maybe that means Malcolm Simmons is on the field more or Bryson Jones. Malcolm needs to be on the field and we need to find ways to get him the football. He deserves to be on the field this week.
• It is a crazy stat for me, but we outscored Cincinnati in the 1st, 3rd and 4th quarter, but gave up 21-0 in the 2nd quarter and so much came in the last 4 minutes. I was proud of our guys for continuing to fight, but we were not in a close game. We have to answer with a score to get things settled in.
• I think they’ve done a good job of go through, they bring a lot of pressure and they bring a lot of looks, hard to identify who is coming because they bring a lot of guys. Getting into formations so that we can identify guys who can bring pressure. BYU did a good job of that and try to create motion and teams that pressure you can get that identified early. Have to run the football and get the ball out quick.
• I think Ben and Sheil would tell you, if you carry 3, you have to carry 3, sometimes we are carrying off guys, on the long touchdowns, should have had help. Had more missed assignments and people trying to do too much. When he jumped that route he was close enough, but I think continue to work on those guys to continue to do that.
• I think it is a mixture of having to catch catchable balls, I can think of 2 that should have been. Also continue to throw the ball down the field and the ball has to be in better place for those guys to get it. One of those receivers had 2 touchdowns in the NFL. I never coached David Bailey until last year. Need to continue to do. Sheil has done, has added linebackers to pressure and a safety and that has helped because we are not consistently getting there with 4 down. Need to call some shots down field, Bryson and Malcolm can help with that.
• Where we went into Colorado with a lot more, we stepped off the plane and he was not eligible. We found out he was eligible on a Friday. It was a total failure on my part to not put him in the game and see what he could do. We go into the Arizona State game and a QB played better and then against Cincinnati he took a step back. Definitely putting us in a good situation, even if you add another 7 points that’s a different game.
• The 3 types of throws, quick game, then a full field read which is a lot of our offense and shots down the field, a big part of the offense has been full field. All 3 phases was an epic failure, but we have to be better on offense to beat Arizona and look at West Virginia and then Oklahoma State, all they do is score points. The next 3 games in front of us we have to be better on offense.
• [stopped non-transcribing as he was talking about a play that had me confused]
• Promise we will be better.

AI summary the two coordinators:

• Offensive Coordinator Mack Leftwich
  Offensive Inconsistencies: Leftwich evaluated quarterback Will Hammond’s performance as having high highs and low lows, noting that the offense has lacked consistency [01:53:35]. He emphasized the need to simplify concepts, provide cleaner reads, and work on Hammond’s deep-ball feel and accuracy [05:57:02].
• Red Zone and Playcalling: Addressing red zone struggles [50:31] and the lack of usage for Thomas Castellanos [05:50:27], Leftwich took responsibility for not utilizing Castellanos more given his success earlier in the season [50:33], explaining that Hammond’s strong performance against Arizona State had initially kept the team comfortable with the current setup [05:08:51].
• Personnel and Speed: Leftwich highlighted wide receiver Malcolm Simmons as a fast playmaker who needs to be on the field more often and get more touches because good things happen when he has the ball [54:24].
• Preparing for Arizona: Commenting on Arizona’s defense [05:32:32], Leftwich noted that they feature one of the highest blitz percentages he has seen, are aggressive and relentless in the box [05:32:39], and play a lot of challenging man-to-man coverage [05:31:09].
• Running Back Depth: He noted that getting running back Cam Dicki back from injury will be a massive boost due to his consistency, versatility, and reliability in blitz pickup [05:54:55].
• Defensive Coordinator Sheil Wood
  Execution and Discipline: Wood attributed their defensive lapses—such as giving up big rushing plays—not to schematic failures, but to a lack of execution, missed assignments [33:53], and occasional players going the wrong way in high-stress situations [37:55].
• Focus on Fundamentals: He stressed that when the defense executes the game plan, they do very well stopping the run, getting off the field on third down, and containing quarterbacks [34:07]. The key to bouncing back is maintaining a high sense of urgency and eliminating self-inflicted mistakes [34:28].
• Arizona’s Offense: Looking ahead to Arizona, Wood praised their explosive and high-scoring offense [34:55], highlighting their talented dual-threat quarterback [34:48], large offensive line [35:07], and the difficult stress their passing concepts put on the defense [35:12].

The Ride: No video after a loss.

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

Big 12 Game of the Week: Baylor has fired Dave Aranda and that’s going to be an interesting job to open up. The Utah at Cincinnati game could be interesting and we’ll see if Cincinnati rides that wave or comes back down to earth.

10/30
Baylor @ UCF 10/30 @ 6:30 pm on ESPN

10/31
Arizona @ Texas Tech @ 11:00 am on ESPN
Kansas State @ Colorado @ 1:00 pm on TNT
Arizona State @ BYU @ 2:30 pm on FOX
Kansas @ TCU @ 2:30 pm on FS1
Utah @ Cincinnati @ 2:45 pm on ESPN
Oklahoma State @ Iowa State @ 6:00 on FS1

National Games of the Week: Nothing necessarily inspiring on a national level for me.

10/31
Wisconsin @ Iowa @ 11:00 am on FOX
Florida @ Georgia @ 2:30 pm on ABC
Ohio State @ USC @ 6:30 pm on NBC
Texas State @ Boise State @ 9:00 pm on CW

Education

Offenses (accidentally) made it easier to blitz them