Castellanos commits, will back up Hammond at QB
A wild four-month legal saga ended with a former Florida State starter landing in Lubbock as QB2, while an elite 2028 tackle picked the Red Raiders over USC and Texas.
Castellanos lands in Lubbock after a saga nobody saw coming
Thomas Castellanos is now a Red Raider, and the road that got him here is one of the stranger in recent transfer-portal memory. Per Hayes Fawcett's timeline, it started when Castellanos declared for the NFL Draft on December 23, then unraveled when Texas Tech QB commit Brendan Sorsby was hit with a gambling investigation on April 14, won a legal injunction on June 8, and watched Castellanos drop his own lawsuit and quit the fight on June 15. Castellanos entered the portal on August 24 and committed to Tech two days later, a move Pete Thamel first reported for ESPN, noting career totals of 6,449 passing yards, 48 passing touchdowns and 24 rushing scores across stops at Florida State, Boston College and UCF.
He is not walking into a starting job. Pete Nakos reported that Castellanos arrives as Will Hammond's backup, which tracks with what Covers' injury table is saying about Hammond himself: he is listed Questionable with a knee issue, and the note hedges on whether he will even be full-go for the opener against Abilene Christian on September 5. SI's Texas Tech desk has also been tracking Hammond's return from the ACL tear that cut his 2025 season short, which is exactly why a proven arm like Castellanos was worth chasing even as a No. 2. Nothing about the QB1 job has changed yet, but the room looks a lot different than it did a week ago.
Last season ended on a shutout, but not before three blowouts
Texas Tech closed out last season on a serious run before it stopped cold. The Red Raiders beat BYU 29-7 on November 8, then blew out UCF 48-9 the following week, then went on the road and hung 49 unanswered on West Virginia. A rematch with BYU on December 6 went the same way, a 34-7 win that made it four straight laughers to close the regular slate.
Then came Oregon. Tech was shut out 23-0 on January 1 in the finish to last season, the one result that will follow this program into fall camp whether anyone brings it up or not. That's the swing this program showed last year — dominant against the Big 12 slate, held scoreless against a playoff-caliber Oregon team — and it's the context hanging over everything McGuire is building this month.
Tech beats USC and Texas for a top-15 2028 tackle
Recruiting rarely produces a cleaner win than this one. Hayes Fawcett reported for Rivals that 2028 offensive tackle Austin Attalah, a 6-foot-7, 305-pound prospect out of San Bernardino, California, has committed to Texas Tech, choosing the Red Raiders over USC and Texas. Attalah is ranked the No. 14 overall recruit in the 2028 Rivals300, and this was not a fast decision — as recently as August 10 he had trimmed his list to those same three schools before picking Lubbock.
It is easy to lose recruiting news in a week full of quarterback drama, but landing a top-15 national prospect over two blue bloods is the kind of thing that tells you where the program's recruiting stock actually sits heading into 2026. Nothing about this changes the roster in front of the coaches this fall, but it is the clearest signal yet that Joey McGuire's staff is winning battles it wasn't winning a few years ago.
The Red Raiders open at home against a team that nearly stole this game in 2024
Texas Tech hosts Abilene Christian on September 5 vs. Abilene Christian, with kickoff at Galaxy Stadium in Lubbock. This is not a cold rivalry: in 2024, ACU rallied from an 18-point deficit and was a two-point conversion away from the upset before Tech escaped in overtime, 52-51. Abilene Christian finished last season 34-41 in a loss at Stephen F. Austin and enters this one at 0-0, but that 2024 shootout is exactly why this opener sold out.
The line opened at Tech -42.5 with the total set at 59.5, both numbers pointing at a heavy Red Raider favorite in a game expected to put points on the board either way. That gap says the market isn't worried about a repeat of the 2024 classic, but Abilene Christian has already shown this series it can make things uncomfortable for a quarter or two before the roster gap takes over.