On November 8, 2021, Joey McGuire was hired as the team's 17th head football coach, replacing Matt Wells, who was fired in the middle of the 2021 season.

The team was known as the "Matadors" from 1925 to 1936, a name suggested by the wife of E. Y. Freeland, the first football coach, to reflect the influence of the Spanish Renaissance architecture on campus.

The school's short-lived Matadors moniker was replaced officially in 1937 with "Red Raiders", a nickname bestowed upon them by a sportswriter impressed by their bright scarlet uniforms that remains to this day.

Five coaches have won conference championships with the Red Raiders: Pete Cawthon, Dell Morgan, DeWitt Weaver, Steve Sloan, and Spike Dykes.

Texas Tech has played in 40 postseason bowl games with an all-time record of 16 wins, 23 losses, and 1 tie.

Only 4 head coaches, E. Y. Freeland, Grady Higginbotham, Rex Dockery, and Jerry Moore, did not lead Texas Tech to a postseason bowl game.

[A 3] Although both Pete Cawthon and Dell Morgan had led the program to previous bowl games, neither posted wins in their five combined appearances.

[32] The Red Raiders played in the 1938 Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, against the West Virginia Mountaineers on New Year's Day.

[29] The 2012 Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas occurred on December 28, 2012, when the Red Raiders won, 34–31, against the Minnesota Golden Gophers.

In this Holiday Bowl meeting, the Red Raiders led the entire game, with the smallest lead of 7 points only lasting 11 seconds on the game clock, as Reginald Davis III returned a 90-yard kickoff for a touchdown, to answer the Sun Devils' Taylor Kelly's 44-yard touchdown run, early in the third quarter.

Seven Red Raider players, Donny Anderson, Hub Bechtol, Byron Hanspard, E. J. Holub, Dave Parks, Gabriel Rivera, and Zach Thomas, have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

[44] Donny Anderson and Graham Harrell both finished fourth in the voting in 1965 and 2008, respectively, the highest ranking a Red Raider has received from voters.

[45][46] Additionally, Michael Crabtree, Byron Hanspard, E. J. Holub, Kliff Kingsbury, and B. J. Symons were Heisman candidates, receiving enough votes to finish in the top 10.

[48] Michael Crabtree became the first two-time winner of both the Fred Biletnikoff Award and Paul Warfield Trophy in back-to-back seasons.

[54] Twelve Red Raiders have been named consensus All-Americans, players who were awarded a majority of votes at their positions by the selectors, with the most recent selection being tight end Jace Amaro in 2013.

The Texas Tech Board of Directors voted to name the new facility in honor of the former president and his wife's contribution.

[64] In 2013, the stadium was once again renovated with 368 seats being added, an upgraded video board and sound system installed, a colonnade and connecting concourse in the north endzone, and a 40-person observation deck.

[70] The football team, wearing its new outfit, defeated heavily favored Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles on October 26, 1934.

[72] In 2013, head coach Kliff Kingsbury was given creative control over the team's uniforms and equipment design via a contract clause.

[80] American humorist Will Rogers once aided in financing a trip to Fort Worth, Texas, so the band could perform at a game against the TCU Horned Frogs.

[81] Today, in keeping with the campus' Spanish Renaissance architecture, the uniforms of the Goin' Band are styled after the trajes of matadors, complete with cape and a flat-brimmed "gaucho" hat.

The Masked Rider became an official mascot in 1954, when Joe Kirk Fulton led the team onto the field at the Gator Bowl.

According to reports from those present at the game, the crowd sat in stunned silence as they watched Fulton and his horse Blackie rush onto the football field, followed by the team.

Ed Danforth, a writer for the Atlanta Journal who witnessed the event, later wrote, "No team in any bowl game ever made a more sensational entrance.

This mascot, adorned in a distinctive gaucho hat like the ones worn by members of the marching band, is one of the most visible figures at Texas Tech.

Beginning with the 1971 football season, the Southwest Conference forbade the inclusion of live animal mascots to away games unless the host school consented.

[86] Though the Masked Rider's identity is public knowledge, it has always been tradition that Raider Red's student alter ego is kept secret until the end of his or her tenure.

The game has been played every year since 1956 despite the fact that Texas Tech was a member of the Border Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

The winner of the annual game is presented with the Saddle Trophy, a traveling icon which bears plaques marking the score of each meeting between the rival schools.

The Texas A&M–Texas Tech football rivalry has experienced multiple altercations off the playing field between coaches, players and fans.