Dave Campbell’s Texas Football will showcase the rise of the Texas Tech football program, making the Red Raiders the cover subjects of the 2026 annual summer preview edition.
Shown on the cover unveiled Monday, June 1, are Tech head coach Joey McGuire, general manager James Blanchard, senior linebacker Ben Roberts, athletics director Kirby Hocutt and Board of Regents chairman Cody Campbell. They are set against the backdrop of a neon oilfield under the headline “Red Raider Inc.: Inside the Modern College Football Machine.”
Lubbock-based photographer Gabby Hutter shot the image, and Lubbock-based agency Jackalope Design conceptualized and designed the cover.
Texas Tech won 12 games last season, the Big 12 championship and went to the College Football Playoff and the Orange Bowl. All were firsts for the program.
Mike Craven wrote the cover story. Texas Football’s promotional release said it provides, “A behind-closed-doors look at how the Texas Tech football machine operates — from conception to execution to excellence and how the best is yet to come in Lubbock.”
“We know the power we wield when deciding the cover of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football,” Texas Football editor-in-chief Greg Tepper said in the announcement. “This year, it felt right to spotlight the people behind the most fascinating story in college football.
“Texas Tech’s rise from mid-tier to national power has challenged assumptions about what’s possible in the modern era, and no program has embraced the changing landscape of college athletics more boldly. This is a story about ambition, innovation and the pursuit of relevance at the highest level of college football, and it felt worthy of capturing on our cover.”
Hocutt and Campbell are the first administrators to be on the cover in the magazine’s 67-year history. It’s the second appearance for McGuire. He shared the 2022 cover with UT-San Antonio coach Jeff Traylor, both of whom became FBS head coaches after being wildly successful Texas high school coaches.
This is the first time the Red Raiders have had the cover to themselves since 2016, when Kliff Kingsbury and Patrick Mahomes were the subjects.
The Red Raiders’ first coverboys were Donny Anderson in 1965, Charles Napper in 1971 and Rodney Allison in 1977. Kingsbury made the cover for the 2001 and 2022 seasons and Adell Duckett in 2004. Mike Leach, Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree were the 2008 cover subjects. Spike Dykes was a solo cover subject in 1990 and shared the cover with fellow coaches in 1996 for the first season of the Big 12.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Dave Campbell’s Texas Football spotlights Texas Tech football on cover
Reporting by Don Williams, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
