Texas Tech has seen an increase in its popularity. Joey McGuire gets the Red Raiders back on the cover of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, and the message is clear.
Texas Tech football is no longer in the middle of a moment. The tale is unfolding.
This one hits differently since the Red Raiders are once again featured on the front of the 2026 edition of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football.
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Joey McGuire, the head coach, is once more at the forefront, but this cover is about more than just a famous player, a high preseason rating, or a coach. It’s about the machine that Lubbock’s Texas Tech has constructed.
General manager James Blanchard, senior linebacker Ben Roberts, athletic director Kirby Hocutt, and Board of Regents chairman Cody Campbell join McGuire.
That group tells you exactly what Dave Campbell’s Texas Football is focusing on: Texas Tech’s ascent from an intriguing Big 12 program to a genuine national player.
After turning McGuire’s vision into tangible outcomes, the Red Raiders garnered that interest.
The program isn’t simply talking big in the current era of collegiate football, as evidenced by Texas Tech’s rush to a Big 12 Conference championship and its entry into the national debate.
It is recruiting, organizing, winning, and spending money like a school that wants to remain there.
This is what makes this cover so intriguing. DCTF has been recognized as the “Football Bible of Texas” for decades, and getting the cover still has significance in a state where football culture is virtually a second language.
For Texas Tech to have received that luster under McGuire twice says a lot about how quickly the perception has shifted.
In 2016, when Patrick Mahomes II and Kliff Kingsbury represented the Red Raiders during one of the most exciting offensive periods in school history, Texas Tech was last featured on the cover.
Before that, the publication highlighted memorable Tech personalities like Mike Leach, Spike Dykes, Michael Crabtree, and Graham Harrell.
However, this 2026 cover is a groundbreaking achievement. Hocutt and Campbell are said to be the only non-coaches or non-players in the magazine’s 67-edition history to have been featured on the cover.
Texas Tech is being portrayed as something greater than a roster.
This program is shaped by leadership, NIL aspiration, front-office mentality, and an aggressive understanding of the direction of college football.
The cover celebrates where Texas Tech has been. It serves as a cautionary tale as to where the Red Raiders think they will go next
