Texas Tech Softball's Gerry Giasco Says His Team Is Embracing 'Villain' Role Ahead of WCWS

The nouveau riche Red Raiders are looking to finish what they started a year ago.

Gerry Glasco’s two-year tenure at Texas Tech could hardly have gone better. | Nathan Giese/Avalanche-Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

It wasn’t always this good for Texas Tech softball.

Before 2025 and 2026, the Red Raiders had only made back-to-back NCAA tournaments once. But once coach Gerry Glasco arrived and the investment money started flowing, boom: a 54-14 record a year ago and a 57-7 mark this season.

When the Women’s College World Series begins Thursday, no one will be under a bigger microscope than Texas Tech. Oklahoma, which ruled the early 2020s, is out. The title of college softball’s flagship program is up for grabs, with the Red Raiders, Texas and UCLA among the squads vying for the title.

“We’re doing things that maybe never [have] been done before,” Glasco said Wednesday. “I’m enjoying every moment, and if softball needs me to be the villain, I’m all about it. Let’s go, it’s fun.”

With bold boosters and one sensational pitcher, Texas Tech went where no Red Raiders softball team had gone before

Texas Tech's NiJaree Canady reacts to a strikeout against Baylor during a Big 12 Conference softball game. | Nathan Giese/Avalanche-Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

College football fans are quite familiar with oil-and-gas baron and former Texas Tech offensive lineman Cody Campbell, who put his monies toward (successfully) buying the Red Raiders a winning football team last season.

However, Campbell has also made quite the mark on Texas Tech’s non-basketball and football sports. He wrote a seven-figure check to the Red Raiders’ softball program, and that level of financial commitment from Texas Tech’s broader donor apparatus helped Texas Tech lure pitcher NiJaree Canady away from Stanford in the transfer portal.

Canady was unhittable in `25, going 34-7 with a 1.11 ERA and 319 strikeouts in 240 innings. This year, she’s been similarly spectacular, posting a 25-6 mark with a 1.78 ERA and 226 strikeouts in 161 innings. The Topeka, Kan., native has vacuumed up national pitcher of the year honors for the bulk of her career for a reason.

This past weekend, Texas Tech burnished its villain credentials against Florida

Texas Tech second baseman Mia Williams gets Florida infielder Kenleigh Cahalan out at second. | Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Red Raiders’ powerful lineup this season includes infielder Mia Williams, a transfer from Florida (around two-thirds of Texas Tech’s roster are transfers) and the daughter of ex-NBAer Jason Williams.

This weekend, the Red Raiders and Gators played in a Super Regional, and chaos ensured with Mia at the center of the action. Florida hit Mia five times, Mia hit two home runs, and Jason was ejected from Game 1 after an altercation with one of the Gators’ fans. Florida had reached six of the previous 10 Women’s College World Series in yet another sign of college softball’s changing of the guard.

Texas Tech can finish the job this Women’s College World Series—but it won’t be easy

The Red Raiders get a relatively favorable opening opponent in Mississippi State, the only unseeded team left in the tournament as well as the only Women’s College World Series team with more than a dozen losses.

Should Texas Tech win, things could get tricky quickly. The Red Raiders would play the winner of an intra-SEC battle between Tennessee and the Longhorns—the latter of whom beat Texas Tech in last year’s finals. While Texas boasts that psychological advantage, the Volunteers have the lowest team ERA in the country at 1.35. On the other side of the bracket sit four teams seeded higher than Texas Tech: Alabama, Nebraska, Arkansas and the Bruins.

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