Ranking Texas Tech's 2026 Opponents by Tiers of Difficulty
In this story:
The Texas Tech football schedule has been released, and it is time to look ahead and see what the 2026 season has in store. Last season, the Red Raiders used their NIL efforts to build a team and catapult themselves into the playoffs, earning a first-round bye before falling to Oregon in the second round. On top of that, Texas Tech landed quarterback Brandon Sorsby from Cincinnati, who should provide a major boost to the offense, which was the main culprit of the Red Raiders' playoff loss last year. In short, the outlook is good for Texas Tech to once again win the Big 12 and punch its ticket to the college football playoff. Now, we take a look at the teams they have to beat to get there and break them up into winability tiers.
Close to Guaranteed Wins
No wins in college football are guaranteed. However, some games are as close to guaranteed as you can get. Due to the fact that Texas Tech was a powerhouse last year, and the best team in their conference, a lot of games are going to fall into this category and the "will be favored, not a guaranteed win" category.
The Red Raiders' games against Abilene Christian, Oregon State, Sam Houston, Colorado, West Virginia, and Oklahoma State fall into this category. Abilene Christian and Sam Houston are both from lower-level conferences filled with teams that would struggle to compete against regular power-four teams. Factor in that Texas Tech is a powerhouse, and you have a recipe for a blowout.
Oregon State, Colorado, West Virginia, and Oklahoma State are a different case. These teams are in the Power Four, three of them being in the Big 12 with Texas Tech. However, these four were seen as some of the worst teams in the Power Four. None of them finished the season with more than four wins. Texas Tech clubbed every one of these teams last season, aside from Colorado, which they did not play. Not enough has happened in the off-season to expect that these programs will rise to the Red Raiders' level in one year.
Will be Favored, Not a Gauranteed Win
The rest of Texas Tech's games fall into this category. Those games are Houston, Arizona State, Cincinnati, Arizona, Baylor, and TCU. Most of these teams are still very unlikely to win the game, but expect them to put up a better fight than their six counterparts mentioned above. Of these six, Houston and the Arizona schools have the best chance at smiting the Texas Tech dragon. Houston was the fourth-best team in the conference last season and boasted a 10-win season. Arizona came in right behind them with a 9-4 campaign. ASU was the only team from the Big 12 to beat the Red Raiders last season, so it's hard to count them out as well. All of these teams have an avenue to beat Texas Tech if everything goes right. However, that avenue is much less complicated for Houston and the Arizona schools. They won't be favored to win, but they are the most likely to pull off the upset.
Stay up to date on Texas Tech Athletics by bookmarking Texas Tech On SI and follow us on Twitter.
Andrew Rice has covered college athletics for two years starting with the Rutgers site, OnTheBanks.com. In February of 2025, he took over as the site manager of OnTheBanks and has been running the site ever since. His other professional journalism experiences include being a Rutgers beat reporter for GridironHeroics.com, along with being a sports journalist for Sports Radio America.