Lubbock, Texas – No. 10 Texas Tech (6-0; 3-0) jumped out to a 21-0 lead just over 11 minutes into the game and never looked back in a 53-25 win over Arizona State Saturday afternoon at Galaxy Stadium.
Arizona State (3-3; 1-2) notched its first touchdown on Raiden Vines-Bright’s seventh catch of the year, as he caught a 74-yard pass from Cutter Boley to make it 21-7 in the first quarter. Mikey Keene started in the second half and led ASU on a 75-yard, 11-play drive that took up 5:26 to make it 43-17 on a Reed Harris two-yard touchdown catch. Keene threw for 256 yards and two touchdowns and was 25-of-34, all of it coming in the second half.
The Red Raiders racked up 215 total yards in the first quarter, 404 yards in the first half, led 24-7 minutes into the second quarter and 43-10 at the half in a game between the past two Big 12 champions.
Derek Eusebio led the Sun Devils with seven catches for 89 yards, his first receptions of the season as he battles back from injury, while Jessiah McGrew anchored the defense with a game-high 14 tackles, including 12 solo stops, and a forced fumble that stopped Texas Tech's first drive inside the ASU five-yard line.
Reed Harris update
Reed Harris now has 41 catches for 653 yards (15.9 yards per catch) and eight touchdowns on the year. He is averaging 108.8 receiving yards per game.
Carson Smith field goals in 2026 (9-of-10)
30 at Texas Tech
37 vs. Hawaii (miss)
57 vs. Hawaii
40 vs. Baylor
36 vs. Baylor
32 vs. Baylor
46 vs. Baylor
39 vs. Kansas (London)
35 at Texas A&M
30 at Texas A&M
Third Quarter (Texas Tech 43, ASU 17)
ASU made it 43-17 with a solid drive with Mikey Keene behind center. Keene was 11-of-13 for 116 yards in the third quarter that included a Reed Harris touchdown catch, his eighth of the season.
Second Quarter (Texas Tech 43, ASU 10)
Texas Tech started the quarter with a 31-yard field goal after going 60 yards in 12 plays, and ASU answered with a 30-yard field by Carson Smith to make it 24-10. Texas Tech hit a 42-yarder with 6:25 left to make it 27-10, and then forced an ASU punt and then got another J’Koby Williams touchdown to make it 34-10. Texas Tech made it 40-10 and the picked off a Boley pass and kicked a field goal to make it 43-10 at half.
First Quarter (Texas Tech 21, ASU 7)
Texas Tech took the opening kickoff and after converting a fourth-and-short on the fourth play went 13 plays to the ASU eight-yard line before Jessiah McGrew forced a fumble that Rodney Bimage recovered. Ben Roberts picked off a Cutter Boley pass and took it 24 yards to make it 7-0 with 7:48 left in the first half. ASU was stopped on a quarterback sneak on 4th-and-short on the next drive, anbd Texas Tech scored two plays later to make it 14-0. ASU punted, and then J’Koby Williams went 62 yards as Texas Tech took a 21-0 lead before Vines-Bright hauled in the 74-yard touchdown pass.
Sun Devil game captains
Captains at the coin toss were AJ Ia, Reed Harris, Maki Stewart and Owen Long.
Inactives
Lyrik Rawls, Jalen Williams, Marques Uini and Harry Hassman were declared out prior to the game.
Quoting Coach Kenny Dillingham
“Way too many missed tackles today. Even on the first drive, we have them in the backfield on the fourth-and-1 before the turnover, literally he’s in the backfield four yards deep, and they convert. You talk about plays in a game that, yeah they ran away with it, but plays like that in a game could drastically change it. We were on the wrong side of all of them early in the game, the fourth-and-1 they had, we had them in the backfield. They can work. The pick-six against us, we can’t have a pick-six in that situation. The fourth-and-1 situation, we can’t do what we did in that situation, and they all went against us early and then we couldn’t tackle them, so that’s not a good combination.”
On the conversation with Cutter Boley after the end of the first half
“That the backer is gonna lean to the release of three, so we should never throw an interception with the release of three. You gotta be able to have the vision of three there, and we gotta rep that more in practice, so that starts with me. I gotta go through that more, before that situation, and we knew that they were a two Tampa team in those scenarios, so we’ve got to be able to prepare him better to be ready for that. It’s just a coachable moment, I was trying to coach him through it. I was just coaching him on coverage and where the Tampa backer is going to lean. Is it to the back, away from the back, and I have to have vision of 2 Tampa and that concept. So I was just coaching him, trying to help. That’s what you do, you try to help and get guys better, and coach them on the situation. Nothing more than that.”
On the decision to start Mikey Keene for the second half
“We're down 30. And you got to change something and Mikey's on the leadership council for a reason. What you saw there was a spark when he went in the football game. We moved the football, we were efficient. He took some sacks we don't want to take, but I thought he had a great command and control when he was in. So we had to do something to shake it up.”
On being surprised by how the first half went
“Shocking for me. Absolutely shocking. We had a good week of practice. Our guys practiced really hard. They came out with great energy, but you can't have all those (bad) plays, you have to make certain plays in the game that are critical. You can't spot them seven points. You have a fourth-and-1, they're in the backfield, we have to finish, right? Fourth-and-1 for us, we have to execute the plan. We have to do things better. Then we got to tackle them. At the end of the day, we couldn't tackle them in the first half and that was not something I was expecting to be a problem.”
On the disconnect from last week to this week
“Obviously we're not coaching things at the level we used to coach them. We're not getting through to the level we used to get through, and we got to be able to connect and get through at that level because it's not getting through. We got to get through. We gave up 300 yards rushing or something, probably. That kid had 15 yards per carry. Unbelievable game by them and they had a good plan and they blocked well and you got to give them a lot of credit, but you gotta be able to tackle, you gotta be able to fit runs and, it's back to back Power Four opponents that we can't do either at all.”
On starting Wade Helton at center over Tana Alo-Tupuola
“Ben (Coleman) went out last year, so our starter went out injured, so we had to move Wade in there, which was great. And then Santana's played it in the past and we felt originally that having Santana at center and Wade at guard was a good combo. Then Wade got injured and then Santana stepped away for a week. He had some personal issues he had to deal with, so we moved Makua (Pule) in and then with both of those guys coming back, we just felt like it was better to have Wade make points and kind of direct things and let Santana just come back and play free.”
On fixing the mismatch at the line of scrimmage
“Nobody magically gonna come save us, right? So we gotta look at it as a staff and say, OK, where are we getting beat? We got cut out when they ran an outside zone play where we got cut out versus boundary pressure where our three technique didn't cross the guard. Then they turned us back on one of them. We've got to be able to cross the guard. We can't get cut out on some of the stuff that we had in the zone pressure game. We had some gut crosses, pressures where we had a guy there and they made really good plays at running back. So I think for us we've got to look at, OK, what have we done well, and we almost got to double down on that because we're not doing a lot well. So if we're doing something well, we may as well double down on that. And then for us, we've got to figure out which players are the guys that continually make plays and if we have to shake things up, we may have to shake things up to try to improve in that category because I think we've given up 500 yards of rushing in the last two games versus conference opponents and not like 500 yards versus a team that’s pounding the rock, 500 yards versus a team that's playing balanced football.”
On having players like CJ Fite step up and be vocal leaders
“At the end of the day, our guys didn't quit the football game. And that tells you a lot about our guys, right? They didn't quit. That would have been a very easy game to quit. It's disgusting to measure a game off of your guys and if they quit because it means you got your butt kicked. But it does tell you what the locker room thinks, and we have to get better. Nobody's coming to save us. We got to get better, we got to get better in a hurry, and it's a broken record from me up here, but there's nothing else to say other than we got to get better. We got to get better fast because we can't miss that many tackles. We can't not make the trip on some things. We can't turn the ball over like we did, so we just got to get drastically better in the key areas of the game.”
On if he’s ready to name a starting quarterback for next week
“I'm going to assess all personnel after I watch the tape on all phases, all sides of the ball. I don't think it's fair to say now, but I was very happy with how Mikey (Keene) went in. I was very happy with Mikey's leadership and command and his veteran presence in that group. He did a phenomenal job just stepping in and being a leader in that moment, and I thought he moved the ball productively down the field. Very good.”
On the players that stood out during the second half
“I think there were a bunch of guys that stood out and played well in the second half or played better in the second half, but I'd be lying if I could just rip off a list of guys. I got to go and watch the film and see who can help us and why the mistakes that happened tonight happened, and try to get better and learn from it because we got to be a better football team and we got a home game coming up versus a good opponent and we got to go play better football.”