Photo credit: Texas Tech Athletics

According to its website, the origin story of Morton Salt began during the Gold Rush, which created a seemingly endless demand for salt for opportunists moving west. Salt was even called white gold during that period of time.

In the early 1900s, the company grew leaps and bounds, due in no small part to an advertising campaign that gave the company a brand icon and slogan, which set the stage for long-lasting company recognition and success.

In the roaring twenties, Morton developed iodized salt, and it quickly became all the rage. Nowadays, Morton Salt continues to break ground with new partnerships, new products and new accolades, while maintaining the sort of timeless traditions that are hard to come by.

Much like the birth of Morton Salt, Texas Tech football has seemingly come out of nowhere in the lead-up to the 2025 season.

The Red Raiders aren’t quite on a Gold Rush-level preseason tour, but they’re not that far off either. Thanks in large part to mega-donor Cody Campbell, the Texas Tech football program has unloaded the money cannon this transfer portal cycle in hopes of flipping the roster and gearing up for a Big 12 title run.

Amidst all the change and talk of oil money, quarterback Behren Moron, of no relation to the actual Morton Salt operation, remains the giant question mark on a team with sky-high aspirations.

Can Morton lead the Red Raiders to a Big 12 title? Or will he be the giant grain of salt in an otherwise title-ready team?

C.R.E.A.M., the infamous Wu-Tang Clan song from 1993, came to mind when I think about Texas Tech’s 2025 offseason. In a sport ruled by money, Texas Tech mega boosters seemingly have more of it than almost anyone else.

The Red Raiders were perhaps the most aggressive transfer portal team in the entire country. According to the 247 Sports 2025 Transfer Portal Spring Rankings, Texas Tech comes in at the number one spot with 18 incoming transfers for the upcoming season.

One of the things I was most impressed with when it comes to this class is the Texas Tech brass’s ability to address some glaring holes on both lines of scrimmage. Sure, the Red Raiders added some fun skill talent, but my eyes were immediately drawn to the offensive and defensive lines.

I like the acquisitions of former Stanford defensive end David Bailey, Georgia Tech defensive end Remello Height and big gap eater Lee Hunter from UCF. On the other side of the ball, I’m intrigued by the acquisition of former Illinois State offensive lineman Hunter Zambrano, who was one of the best linemen at the lower levels in 2024. The Red Raiders essentially flipped their entire offensive line year to year, and I’m fascinated to see that play out.

Last season, Texas Tech did some fun things on offense and wholly unsustainable things on defense.

The 2024 offense was led by superstar running back Tahj Brooks and, of course, Behren Morton. Brooks was a workhorse running back in every sense of the word, finishing with just shy of 1,500 yards and 17 touchdowns. It’ll be a tall task to replace his outgoing production. The Red Raiders will likely rely on former USC running back Quinten Joyner to help out in that regard.

Morton, on the other hand, threw for over 3,000 yards and 26 touchdowns. For most quarterbacks, that would be labeled as having a fantastic season. But do the surface-level stats match the advanced data?

More on that later.

On the other side of the ball, the Red Raiders were abysmal on defense. This unit ranked 75th in rush defense and 133rd in pass defense, both incredibly grim figures. The Red Raiders added a handful of secondary and defensive line players via the portal, which signifies that they’ve accepted that last year was horrible and that they needed some new horses on that side of the ball. Texas Tech also hired away Shiel Woods from Houston, hoping he can recreate some of that game-wrecking magic the Cougars cooked up last season.

Source: Hudl IQ

Using the Hudl IQ Player Radar, we can see that Behren Morton was more or less a slightly above-average Big 12 quarterback in 2024.

He impacted his team positively in EPA/Play and EPA/Pass, among other key metrics. Morton finished with a slightly above average completion percentage, but was pretty average or below average when it came to metrics like Chunk % and Yards/Completion.

Source: Hudl IQ

He wasn’t exactly bombing the ball downfield last season. By and large, he was playing pickleball, keeping everything close to the line of scrimmage. A dink and dunk quarterback, if you will.

For some teams, Morton’s 2024 performance would be categorized as just fine. Not exceptional, but not bad either. The problem? Texas Tech isn’t like most teams.

The Red Raiders have Big 12 title aspirations, which means at some point, Morton will likely have to go toe-to-toe with the conference’s best signal-callers. I think it’s a fair question to ask, whether he can go word for word, bar for bar, with guys like Baylor’s Sawyer Robertson, Iowa State’s Rocco Becht, ASU’s Sam Leavitt, etc.

Last season’s output—and injury record—will likely not be good enough for the 2025 iteration of Texas Tech. Can Morton go up a level? I can’t wait to find out.

Playing the schedule game, Texas Tech will live a charmed life for the first three weeks of the season, before traveling to face a new and improved Utah team in Week 4. Other tough road games include trips to Tempe to face the 2024 conference winner, ASU, and to Manhattan to face a ranked Kansas State team. The home slate is pretty manageable, and includes games against KU, Oklahoma State and UCF.

Texas Tech feels like a high-variance team. Could the Red Raiders go 9-3, or dare I say, 10-2? Sure! Could this roster struggle to gel, and the team look a lot closer to 7-5? Absolutely.

The phrase “a grain of salt” comes from the Latin expression cum grano salis, which translates to “with a grain of salt.” It stems from ancient Roman writings, most notably in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, written in the 1st century AD.

In Pliny’s account, the phrase was part of a recipe for an antidote to poison. A grain of salt was an ingredient, implying it was necessary to help me the antidote more effective.

As we inch closer to the start of the 2025 season, one with heavy expectations for the team from Lubbock, the Red Raiders will hope Behren Morton is precisely what Texas Tech needs to navigate a tricky Big 12 conference and earn a berth to the College Football Playoff.

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