Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire and his wife Debbie McGuire sing the Matador Song with the rest of the Texas Tech football team after winning an NCAA college football game against Houston Friday, Sept. 18, 2026, in Lubbock, Texas. (AP Photo/Justin Rex)

Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire and his wife Debbie McGuire sing the Matador Song with the rest of the Texas Tech football team after winning an NCAA college football game against Houston Friday, Sept. 18, 2026, in Lubbock, Texas. (AP Photo/Justin Rex)

Justin Rex/AP Photo/Justin Rex

LUBBOCK — On top of everything else Texas Tech has done to make itself Public Enemy No. 1 this season, the Red Raiders sold out the family name of its 79-year-old football stadium this summer. And to a data center, no less. The playing surface at Galaxy Stadium now sports more logos than a NASCAR entry. 

Next thing you know, Cody Campbell will foreclose on a 90-year-old widow and steal a 5-year-old’s puppy.  

But, if the 13th-ranked Red Raiders are, as Joey McGuire said in a recent documentary, “the most hated team in the country,” you had to love the show that Tech and 22nd-ranked Houston put on Friday. 

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Conner Weigman’s desperate lunge at the goal line with 49 seconds left came up inches and two points short of potential overtime, allowing Tech to escape in a 28-26 thriller before a packed house of 60,229. 

Great theater, is what it was. You could nitpick Tech’s effort. For the second week in a row, the Red Raiders gave up more than 400 yards offense, this time against a 7 1/2-point underdog. They also spotted the visitors a 10-point lead after a disastrous first quarter. 

Given everything that went wrong, and then right, and then came this close to going wrong again, you might think it would give McGuire pause on the us-against-the-world rhetoric. 

Of course, you’d be wrong. 

In his opening remarks at the post-game presser, he said he’d like to thank an ESPN talking head as well as former coach Rick Neuheisel for taking Houston. 

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“Keep picking against us, man,” McGuire said. “I appreciate that. It just adds fire to it. Just keep picking against us. We love that stuff. We love being doubted. 

“There’s nothing like being doubted and coming back and winning a game like that.” 

Frankly, Tech had provided several reasons for doubt going into the game. Coming off their College Football Playoff run last season, the Red Raiders might have been the most disappointing team in the Top 25 this season. The defense misses the big-time play of Jacob Rodriguez, David Bailey and Lee Hunter. Will Hammond hadn’t made anyone forget the quarterback play of Behren Morton, either, and he wasn’t exactly a fan favorite after the Orange Bowl loss to Oregon. 

Not to put too fine of a point on it, but Tommy Castellanos, on his fourth college football stop, started for Tech at quarterback Friday. The plan was for him to get two plays, then turn it over to Hammond. 

He got one, and it was a lulu. 

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Rolling to his right under pressure, he lofted a Texas Leaguer toward the sideline , thinking — no doubt, like a certain NFL quarterback from Dallas — that it would drift harmlessly out of bounds. Like Dak Prescott’s heave, it did not drift foul. Will James hauled it in at midfield and got a foot down. And, just like that, Houston was in position to take a 10-0 lead. 

Willie Fritz, Houston’s 66-year-old coach, has won everywhere he’s been, and he’s been everywhere, man. From Blinn College, where he won two national titles, to Central Missouri to Sam Houston to Georgia Southern to Tulane and Houston. Always the same results. National coach of the year in 2022. His teams play fundamentally sound football and don’t beat themselves. 

The Cougars came out Friday determined to run the ball down Tech’s throat, which might have seemed a curious plan, considering the Red Raiders’ run defense had been its only bright spot this season. But it worked. Of Houston’s 458 yards total offense, 176 came by foot. Also enabled them to keep the ball 11 minutes, 18 seconds in jumping out front by 10. 

Tech, in the meantime, had the ball all of 10 seconds. 

Finally, after Tech’s Kenny Johnson ran a stop-and-go while Hammond threw an out, McGuire called a timeout and huddled his players. 

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“Take a deep breath,” he told them. 

On the next play, Hammond rolled right, a couple of Cougars in pursuit, before hurling a 28-yard fastball into Johnson’s stomach. Two plays later, with a Cougar in his grill, Hammond dropped a 36-yard touchdown pass on Johnson, and the game was on. 

The two old Southwest Conference foes, both ranked in a matchup for the first time since 1989, went toe-to-toe from there on out. Among the highlights was a gorgeous 46-yard throw and catch from Weigman to Koby Young in which Young, looking back over his left shoulder, pinned the ball to his right side as his knee grazed the right pylon. 

Weigman, who started out at Texas A&M, finished with 282 yards and three touchdowns, a far cry from last year’s blowout loss to the Red Raiders. He left that game before the half with a concussion. Not much consolation to go the distance Friday and still come up short. 

Hammond wasn’t as effective overall. Claimed he was “a little too amped up” on a pick after a bruising run to midfield. Playing before so many people at home, he said, might have also given him an adrenaline rush. 

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Maybe playing college football games under Friday night lights isn’t such sacrilege after all, no? 

And maybe Tech just needs a little time to grow into the kind of team it was last year. Friday was a good first step, anyway. Wouldn’t surprise me if these two end up playing again this year. Maybe next time, the pickers will make McGuire happy. Or not. Whatever works, man.  Â