Game Preview: Arizona vs. Texas Tech

Game Details

Good Guys: Texas Tech Red Raiders (6-1, 3-1)
Bad Guys: Arizona Wildcats (6-1, 3-1)
Where: Galaxy Stadium | Lubbock, TX
When: Saturday, October 31st @ 11:00 am
TV & Streaming: ESPN
Radio: The Varsity Network
The Line: Texas Tech -3.5
Game Notes: Texas Tech | Arizona
Weather Report: AM Showers, 67-59

Key Players for Cincinnati

#1 QB Noah Fifita (5-10/189): Fifita is an absolute weapon, completing 74% of his passes for 9.2 yards per attempt with 18 touchdowns and 4 interception and nearly 300 passing yards a game. Fifita doesn’t have a ton of yards rushing, that’s not really what he does.

#44 RB Antwan Roberts (6-0/201) | #3 RB Kedrick Reescano (6-0/214) | #24 RB Quincy Craig (5-10/194): Truly a 3-headed monster at running back. Reescano has run for 300 yards on 3.79 per attempt with 5 touchdowns and 43 yards a game. Roberts has 251 yards, 7.38 per attempt, 2 touchdowns and 42 yards a game, while Craig is 237 yards, 4.71 per attempt, 2 touchdowns, and 34 yards a game.

#17 WR Isaiah Mizell (6-1/168): Mizell is just a part of the passing game, but he’s the leading guy. Mizell has 493 yards receiving and he’s a deep threat, over 18 yards per reception and 70 yards per game to go along with 5 touchdowns.

#3 DE Trey Smith (6-5/265): Smith is one of the best highest rated players, 16 tackles, 2 tackles for a loss and 2 quarterback hurries. It was mentioned during the presser that 17 different players that have at least half a sack so they are coming from all over the place.

#8 LB Taye Brown (6-2/226): Brown is the leading tackler for Arizona with 42 tackles, 1 tackle for a loss, half a sack, 2 passes broke up, and 4 quarterback hurries.

#15 CB Malcolm Hartzog (5-8/187): Hartzog isn’t all that big, I don’t think any of the quarterbacks are that big, but highly effective. Hartzog has 27 tackles, 2.5 tackles for a loss, half a sack, and 1 pass broken up.

Seth C’s Thoughts on the Game

Quarterback Play. I don’t even know if I changed the title to this, but this is going to be the key to the game, without question. And I really have more questions than answers on this. I don’t know how much Tommy Castellanos will play, if any. I always remember when fans would clamor for a backup to play and Kingsbury or whoever was the OC, would go back to who is receiving most of the 1st team snaps because there’s not a lot of snaps to go around. A quarterback like Hammond probably needs all of the snaps possible and if any is given to Castellanos that’s not short-yardage, that’s probably a detriment to your guy. But on the other hand, Hammond hasn’t performed well enough and I sort of expect the leash to be short. And during the presser this week, McGuire said that they may take half the field away from Hammond, which that’s a left or right thing usually (from what I’ve determined) and the quarterback only reads one side of the field and one specific defender.

What Defense Shows Up. I don’t knwo and my confidence level in the defense is not great. Like a lot of you, I feel that the inconsistency is a problem and I also think that Doege is smart enough to look at what Cincinnati did and do some of the same things. Granted, a big part of Cincinnati’s success was a result of 5 big plays, but Arizona is capable of that, but they haven’t been a huge rushing team thus far this season. Fifita has picked teams part to the point of having a top-10-ish offense and his arm has dissected teams.

Who Can Pick Up the Pieces. If it is not Hammond or Castellanos picking up the offense. Arizona is limiting teams to 4.7 yards per play, which is 19th in the nation, so teams are already behind the sticks to start and that’s been an issue for the Texas Tech offense. McGuire talked about Malcolm Simmons (who is questionable on the availability report) and Bryson Jones being bigger part of the offense and Cameron Dickey would return. The offense obviously needs some juice in addition to Hammond. It seems as if all of these pieces were acquired in the offseason and we were promised bigger roles for these players but that just hasn’t happened.

Availability Report.

OUT
WR #6 Jalen Jones

QUESTIONABLE
WR #11 Malcolm Simmons
CB #18 S’Vioarean Martin
S #21 Miquel Dingle Jr.

PROBABLE
S #3 Peyton Morgan
TE #7 Terrance Carter Jr.
RB #8 Cameron Dickey
LB #13 Ben Roberts
S #28 Jordan Rogers
OL #77 Elias Gillen
OLB #97 Charles Anderson Jr.

Video Notes

No time for me this morning. An incredibly late night, which included all of 635 in Dallas being shut down and forced to exit. Noah Fifita is really good.

Uniforms:

Don’t look up.

Game 8 Ŧhreads https://t.co/mgfDurl6EH

— Texas Tech Football (@TexasTechFB) October 29, 2026

Stats: I decided to give you full numbers in addition to the graphs.

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

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I’ll stick with my pre-game prediction, against all logic. Texas Tech eeks out a win by 3, but I’ll take those points. I will post the results tomorrow morning!