Well, here’s one you didn’t see coming. Shannon Terry, the owner and creator of On3, went on record with a comparison that’s sure to stir up the college football world. Terry said Texas Tech feels like the new‑era Alabama. Yes, that Alabama, the one you think of when Nick Saban showed up and changed everything.
“Please don’t shoot me,” Terry said, “but Texas Tech feels like Alabama when Saban arrived — just out of resources and talent everywhere. Different era, but same tactics.” That’s a statement most programs would hang on their wall if they could, but coming from someone with as much front‑row access to recruiting data, roster movement, and long‑term talent tracking as Terry does, it’s the kind of thing that makes you lean back and think for a minute.
Let’s unpack that for a second. When Saban arrived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama wasn’t exactly bad, but it wasn’t a perennial national championship contender either. Within a couple of years, they were beating every team they played by three scores. They redistributed state‑by‑state talent. They got the best players in every region. They locked down elite recruiting classes like no one else. The results were obvious on the field. That’s the picture Terry is drawing for Texas Tech.
If you watch the way the Red Raiders have been building under Joey McGuire and funded by billionaire booster Cody Campbell, there’s a pattern that reminds you of a program on the rise. They’re landing transfers that look like difference‑makers, they’re recruiting in places you’d never peg as Tech territory, and they’re competing against programs that historically used to chew them up. When Terry says “our resource and talent, everyone,” he’s not wrong.
However, the thing that makes all of this feel bold is the success aspect. Texas Tech has won the Big 12, and no one is taking that away from them, but the Crimson Tide has national success just about every year for multiple decades. Meanwhile, Texas Tech just got skunked in the College Football Playoff by Oregon. Does that mean that they won’t have success in the future? Absolutely not, but it’s what’s keeping Terry’s statement from being universally accepted.
Talk is cheap, but data isn’t, and if someone who built his career on tracking talent sees this as the beginning of a “Saban era”‑style climb, that’s worth paying attention to. Texas Tech isn’t just rising. Right now, it feels like they’re positioning themselves to stay that way for the long haul.
