Yahoo Sports’ Preseason College Football Top 25: Even without Brendan Sorsby, No. 8 Texas Tech should be in the Big 12 title game again

College football officially begins this month.

Now that it’s August, there are just weeks to go until Week Zero arrives on Aug. 29, and since the season is quickly approaching, we’re rolling out our preseason top 25.

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After revealing our teams in the back half of our top 25, we continue our previews of the top 12 teams in the country with the clear favorite in the Big 12.

Previously: Teams Nos. 13-25, No. 12 Oklahoma, No. 11 Alabama, No. 10 Texas A&M, No. 9 Ole Miss

• Odds to win national championship: 22-1

• Odds to make College Football Playoff: -200

2025 in less than 100 words

The Red Raiders had one of the best point differentials in the country a season ago. Tech averaged over 39 points per game and gave up just 11.8. Only six teams scored more than Texas Tech. Only two allowed fewer points per game.

That’s an obvious recipe for success. Tech’s only regular-season blemish came at Arizona State in a 26-22 loss. QB Will Hammond started that game — more on him in a bit — as starter Behren Morton was injured.

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Morton returned two games later as the Red Raiders reeled off five straight wins to end the regular season and then beat BYU for the Big 12 title. Over its last four games (two against BYU), Tech outscored its opponents 160-23. That stretch earned Texas Tech a first-round bye in the College Football Playoff, but the dream season came crashing to a halt with a 23-0 loss to Oregon in the Orange Bowl.

The QB

There’s not much need to rehash the Brendan Sorsby saga at this point. After the Cincinnati QB transferred to Texas Tech, his sports betting habits came to light. Facing a potential suspension for his final season of college football, Sorsby got an injunction that allowed him to play most of the 2026 season.

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The ruling sent the Big 12 and the rest of college football into a furor. The pushback was so great that Sorsby scrapped his plans to play at TTU and applied for the NFL’s supplemental draft days after getting the injunction. The NFL, in turn, declined to hold a supplemental draft in 2026.

That brings us to Hammond, Texas Tech’s backup QB in 2025 and a player who is also recovering from a torn ACL. With Morton still sidelined after the Arizona State loss, Hammond started Tech’s 42-0 win over Oklahoma State the following week. But he suffered a season-ending knee injury in the first half of that game.

Morton’s performance in the Orange Bowl made it clear that Texas Tech still needed a top-tier quarterback to compete for a national title — even with a roster as loaded as last season’s was. And by adding Sorsby to the roster, Tech made it clear that it didn’t see Hammond as its guy for 2026.

The knee injury surely played a role. But instead of backing up Sorsby in 2026, Hammond is now Tech’s Week 1 starter and the guy who has to perform better than Morton did against top competition.

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Before his injury, Hammond was 69-of-109 passing for 680 yards with seven passing TDs and three interceptions. And he was a talented runner, too. While Morton finished with negative rushing yardage thanks to sacks, Hammond had 43 carries for 299 attempts and five rushing TDs. The ACL recovery might put a damper on those rushing stats, especially at the beginning of the season.

Non-QB to watch

The easiest way to support a relatively inexperienced quarterback returning from injury is to have an exceptional run game. And Tech is lucky enough to return both Cameron Dickey and J’Koby Williams.

Dickey led the Red Raiders with 209 carries for 1,124 yards and 14 touchdowns. Williams had 155 carries for 868 yards and six scores while also adding 35 catches for 388 yards and two receiving touchdowns. They easily form the best rushing duo in the Big 12 and are running behind an offensive line that returns three starters from last year’s team.

Eric Edholm’s NFL Draft prospect to watch

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I considered Brendan Sorsby for this exercise, but because he won’t be playing for the Red Raiders this season, clouding his draft stock further, I pivoted to Holmes, a potential riser. One of several upper-middle-tier prospects at Tech, the 6-foot-2, 300-pound Holmes looks like a Day 2-caliber prospect who could rise with another strong season. He defends the run well, disengages from blocks cleanly and can knife into the backfield for quick TFLs. Playing next to Mateen Ibirogba again should help Holmes from seeing frequent double teams and could lead to even more production after a 9-TFL, 4.5-sack season. Other strong TTU draft prospects include LB Ben Roberts, CB Brice Pollock and TE Terrance Carter Jr.

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Carter enters the season as the No. 3 tight end in Eric Froton’s full PPR rankings. In 2025, Carter had 51 catches for 552 yards and five touchdowns. In a sport that doesn’t tend to utilize tight ends in the passing game nearly as much as NFL teams do, having a reliable tight end is a must to be successful in college fantasy football.

Carter fits that bill. He’s Tech’s second-leading returning receiver and the pass game is likely to not have a go-to player to hog all the targets. Four players had at least 48 catches in 2025, and while the receiver room is very deep thanks to transfers like Kenny Johnson (Pitt) and Malcolm Simmons (Auburn), the odds are low that the Red Raiders will have a 1,000-yard receiver in 2026.

Biggest game

There was some consternation from board of regents president and prominent booster Cody Campbell about this game getting moved to Friday night for Fox. You can understand why. It’s the biggest home game of the season for Texas Tech and comes just six days after the Red Raiders play at Oregon State.

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But TV dollars drive college football. The game is on Friday for a reason.

Anyway, it’s a great chance to see how healthy Hammond is in what could be Texas Tech’s toughest game of the season outside of a home game against Arizona on Halloween.

Why Texas Tech is No. 8

Yes, the paragraph above noted that Texas Tech’s two toughest opponents are set to be Houston and Arizona. Both teams are good; the Cougars went 10-3 in 2025 and don’t look likely to regress. Arizona has the most experienced QB in the conference in Noah Fifita and was 9-4 after ending the regular season on a five-game win streak.

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But Texas Tech avoids both BYU and Utah during the regular season in 2026 after facing each team a season ago. A non-conference schedule of Abilene Christian, Oregon State and Sam Houston State is also very easy.

Simply put, the Red Raiders may have the easiest path to the College Football Playoff of any power conference team. Tech’s road opponents in Big 12 play are Colorado, Cincinnati, Oklahoma State and Baylor. They combined for 16 wins in 2025.

There’s a reason why Tech’s odds to make the Playoff are at -200.

Yes, there are still questions outside of quarterback. The pass rush needs to reload after the departures of David Bailey and Romello Height, but in come Adam Trick from Miami (Ohio) and Trey White (San Diego State). They combined for 15 sacks in 2025.

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A defense that forced turnover after turnover may not be as lucky in 2026. After four straight seasons of with a negative turnover differential and a plus-one season in 2024, Texas Tech was a whopping plus-14 in turnovers in 2025. That’s a number that’s bound to regress.

But this is a team that is still good enough with an easy enough schedule to withstand some of that regression. Fifth-place Heisman finisher Jacob Rodriguez is gone, but Tech brought in Kansas State linebacker Austin Romaine to pair with Ben Roberts and John Curry. This is still one of the best linebacking groups in the country.

All the ingredients are here for a Big 12 winner and another shot at a first-round bye. Just how far Tech goes in the playoff will probably come down to the quarterback play again. And after the Red Raiders struck out on Sorsby, that pressure is now all on Hammond.