Texas Tech vs Oregon State 2025: First Big Test for Red Raiders | Game Preview & Prediction (2026)

The No. 21-ranked Texas Tech football team should get its first test of the season on Saturday when the Red Raiders take on Oregon State.

While the Beavers come into Lubbock’s Jones AT&T Stadium with an 0-2 record, they’re a step up from Arkansas-Pine Bluff (a 67-7 win) and Kent State (62-14) the previous two weeks. Kickoff for the sold-out contest is for 2:30 p.m. and the game will be televised on FOX.

So far, it’s been pretty good for the Red Raiders (2-0) who should have rolled against their previous opponents with ease, which is what they needed to do if they were to have any chance of living up the preseason hype.

The defense has been stellar, quarterback Behren Morton has been on target with his throws, transfer wide receiver Reggie Virgil has been the playmaker, and head coach Joey McGuire has been really pleased with this running back group of J’Koby Williams, Cameron Dickey and Adam Hill, who was the first Red Raider to record a 100-yard rushing game with his performance last week.

The team has done a good job of keeping its focus and living up to the high expectations so far and McGuire said it all starts with having a healthy locker room.

“These guys really care about each other. They’re close,” he said. “And two, I think we’ve hit home runs with our two coordinators. I’m proud of those guys. They do such a good job of in-game communication. And then it’s the Jimmys and the Joes. When you have better football players, all of a sudden, you’re a better coach. That’s not against anybody in the 100 years of Texas Tech football history, but the better roster you have, the better chance you have on being a better team.”

Oregon State is coming off a 37-26 loss to Fresno State last week and dropped a 34-14 decision to Cal the week before.

At quarterback for the Beavers is one-time Texas Longhorn and highly-rated recruit Maalik Murphy, who is listed as 6-foot-5 and 234 pounds.

“He’s won games in the Big 12 and he had a great year last year at Duke,” said McGuire about Murphy. “He’s big. He’s got a huge arm, he can make all his throws. We’re going to have to get him off his mark, so we’ve got to pressure him.”

Because of how big and physical the Beavers are, McGuire is also anticipating this game to be good preparation for the Red Raider’s Big 12 opener at Utah on Sept. 20.

“When you talk about teams that were PAC-12, and you’re coming from out west, you are talking about a bigger more physical team,” McGuire said. “Also, you’ve got two teams whose head coaches are defensive coaches. Not saying that you don’t have very physical teams with offensive head coaches, but usually with defensive head coaches there’s a little bit of a different sense of urgency of playing really good defense. That turns into a more physical game. So, I think the biggest thing is, can we match their effort and not get outplayed effort-wise? And then can we execute like we have?

“I’m really excited. Why am I excited? We have done what we were supposed to do the first two weeks. If you look at it on paper and you wrote a book on, hey how does the season start? We’re supposed to score 60 points if we’re playing at the level we’re supposed to play at.”

The Red Raiders may not score 60 points this week, but they should still take care of business for the third week in a row.

My pick: Texas Tech 49, Oregon State 20.