The last time Conner Weigman played Texas Tech, he doesn't remember most of it.It was the second quarter of a game that had already gotten away from Houston, a fourth-down throw, a Red Raider bearing down, a trip to the turf that ended Weigman's night and, not long after, the Cougars' chances.
He spent the second half of that 35-11 defeat in a training room instead of a headset, cycling through concussion protocol while a backup mopped up what was left. "I was a little out of it," he said afterward—as honest a description of getting your bell rung as any quarterback has ever offered a locker-room scrum.
Eleven months later, the sequel kicks off Friday night at Galaxy Stadium, the building longtime college football fans still know as Galaxy Stadium, where No. 22 Houston opens Big 12 play against No. 13 Texas Tech—No. 12, if you prefer the Coaches Poll's math. Kickoff is 7 p.m. locally on Fox, prime time, under the lights, the way West Texas likes its football served.
Tuesday afternoon Weigman reflects back—whether not finishing that game gnaws at him, whether there's a little extra fuel in the tank for the rematch. He didn't take the bait.
"I mean, not really," he said. "Football is football. We gotta go out there and play to the best of our abilities, and execute at a high level... just go play some good football."
It's the answer every quarterback in America gives about this time of year. Whether he means it is a different question, and Friday night will answer it better than he can.
History says this isn't close, regardless of what Weigman is or isn't feeling about it. Texas Tech has won seven straight meetings and 13 of the last 14, and the Cougars haven't left Lubbock with a win since a 51-35 shootout on Sept. 13, 1990, back when both schools still ran with the old Southwest Conference. Last year's beating came courtesy of a Red Raiders team that went on to win the Big 12 before getting shut out by Oregon, 23-0, in the College Football Playoff quarterfinal. This year's Tech team is favored again by better than a touchdown.
Weigman isn't dressing up what's waiting for him on the other side of the ball, either.
"They have a bunch of really good players," he said. "They fly around the football, and they're coached really well. And it's gonna be a really fun physical game, and we're excited for it."
"Fun" is one word for it. Tech's defense has made a habit of turning visiting quarterbacks into supporting characters in Lubbock.
If there's an edge for Weigman this week, it isn't manufactured revenge. It's the math he's been running for a while now. Asked whether a game of this size carries an extra notch of intensity, he shrugged off the premise almost entirely.
"We work dang near 365 days a year to get 12 Saturdays a year. I don't take anyone for granted, each and every week."
Two games in, he likes what he's seeing up front, where Houston added three transfer starters this offseason.
"They've been setting the tone early, and communicating well, and that's what we need up front," he said. He's not wrong about where Friday gets decided, either. "That's where it starts," Weigman said of the line of scrimmage. "It's a physical contact sport, and whoever wins the trenches usually has a good outcome on the game."
Texas Tech has its own subplot at quarterback. The offseason's marquee addition, Cincinnati transfer Brendan Sorsby, reportedly one of the highest-paid players in college football, won't be throwing a pass for the Red Raiders this season—an NCAA gambling investigation and a stint in treatment for a gambling addiction complicated his path to the field.
The job has belonged to Will Hammond, a converted backup working back from a torn ACL, and Hammond has been steady enough through two games that Texas Tech hasn't had much reason yet to miss the $6 million arm.
None of it — not the streak, not a stadium that holds better than 60,000, not the noise a Big 12 opener under the lights tends to generate — seems to have Weigman especially worried.
"We hear it for sure," he said of the crowd he'll face on the road. "It's loud out there. It helps us get ready for that stuff, being able to communicate when it's loud."
Three years of road Saturdays in the SEC at Texas A&M will do that to a quarterback's nerves.He's got more around him than he did last October, too. On receiver Koby Young, who's grown into one of his top targets:
"We believe in Koby to go out and do what Koby does. He's a special talent, a special player — just give him the ball and let him go make plays."
On tight end Patrick Overmyer, a UTSA transfer who's quietly become a security blanket in the middle of the field: "It's built on trust. I know what Pat's gonna be. He's always in the right spot at the right time."
By the Numbers
Series
Texas Tech, 7 straight
Last meeting
Tech 35, Houston 11
Weigman, 2026 (2 GP)
425 yds, 4 TD, 1 INT
Weigman, 2025 (full yr.)
2,705 yds, 25 TD passing
Kickoff
Fri., 7 p.m. CT, Fox
Line
Texas Tech −7.5
Last Houston win in Lubbock
Sept. 13, 1990
Somewhere in Lubbock on Friday, there's a version of this game where Weigman finishes what got interrupted last October and drags Houston to a result this series hasn't produced since before either starting quarterback was born. There's also the version where Texas Tech is simply Texas Tech again, and the streak rolls to eight.
Weigman, for his part, isn't interested in the mythology surrounding either outcome. Ask him what a game like this means — on the road, ranked opponent, the first real test of his senior year — and he skips right past the revenge plot everyone else has written for him.
"It's gonna be fun, electric atmosphere on the road," he said. "This is what you play college football for, and we're really excited for it."
No unfinished business. Just Friday.
