Change Is Now - What We Learned From Texas Tech's Win vs. Kansas

People are talking about the Texas Tech Red Raiders, but not enough people are respecting them yet

Texas Tech's Will Hammond (right) celebrates a touchdown with Mitch Griffis against Kansas during a Big 12 Conference football game, Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock. | Nathan Giese/Avalanche-Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Welcome back to another edition of What Did We Learn. With the return of the football season, my weekly article returns, a two-year-long tradition now with TCU, Texas Tech and Wake Forest On SI. At the end of every weekend, I release my weekly "what did we learn"—an opinionated editorial detailing what Red Raider fans can take away from the week before that might not appear in the box score.

The Texas Tech Red Raiders are a wagon. In fact, they might be better than the wagon, they might be the first high-speed train. Sure, they aren't the first train, and sure they are just doing what everyone else has been doing, but they are doing it better, and dominantly.

Their newest victim was the Kansas Jayhawks, the once viewed upon as the up-and-coming team in the Big 12. The Red Raiders beat them 42-17, not without struggles, but dominantly. Now, they are 7th in the AP poll, inexplicably behind a one-loss Alabama Crimson Tide team.

They're undefeated, they pass the eye test, and they have the fan base to go with it, so why aren't they a bigger deal around the country yet?

The Air Is Different

When the game started, it seemed like it would go how the rest of the season did for the Red Raiders. They were up 21-0 with just over 11 minutes in the second quarter still remaining, en route to continue their dominance stretch. Then, the Jayhawks struck back, they made it a 21-17 game at halftime.

It seemed like the run was over, that this would be when the Red Raider's would have their inevitable collapse, something the fans have become accustomed to. They're used to getting their hopes up, believing in their team, only to be hurt time after time. They squinted their eyes, like a bad car wreck they knew they couldn't turn away from what was going to happen.

Except, it never came. They turned the tide, and scored 21 unanswered points, and flat out dominated the second half at home. The teams of the past, the fans of the past, breathed a sigh of relief, enough to make it feel like the air shifted. You could feel a palpable different in the win, even though it was their sixth straight victory this season by 20-plus points.

Now they remain undefeated, having won every game by three scores or more, and they are placed behind a one-loss Alabama team, who's quality loss is only growing worse as the season continues. The disrespect for what Joey McGuire has built, and continues to build, remains. Any other team with their performance this season is likely top-five.

This isn't the Red Raiders of the past, they've proven that so far, so it's time for them to stop being treated as such.