Texas Tech is college softball’s new villain — and the Red Raiders don’t care – The Athletic
LUBBOCK, Texas — When Texas Tech rolled through the softball postseason last spring, collecting its first-ever Regional and Super Regional titles along the way, the Red Raiders became the darlings of the 2025 Women’s College World Series.
Led by pitcher NiJaree Canady’s million-dollar arm — the ace received a lucrative name, image and likeness deal to transfer from Stanford to Tech before her junior season — and signature foot stomp, Texas Tech dazzled die-hards and casual fans, serving notice in a world long dominated by Oklahoma and other SEC schools that the revamped Big 12 was still going to be a factor.
The Red Raiders, led by first-year coach Gerry Glasco, lost the championship series to Texas, falling 10-4 to the Longhorns in a decisive Game 3, but promised they weren’t going to be a one-hit wonder. They’d be back, they said.
And they weren’t shy about how they were going to do it. Within weeks of losing in the WCWS, the Red Raiders completed an unprecedented shopping spree to upgrade their roster, plucking many of the best players out of the transfer portal. With the financial backing of its NIL collective, The Matador Club, Tech signed a bevy of superstar transfers, including All-Americans Taylor Pannell (previously at Tennessee) and Mia Williams (Florida), along with Kaitlyn Terry (UCLA), catcher Jasmyn Burns (Ohio State) and infielder Jackie Lis (Southern Illinois).
As a result, Texas Tech has gone from beloved to bad guy in less than a year — quite the 180-degree turn for the 2026 No. 11 seed, which begins its quest Friday for a second straight WCWS appearance when it hosts Marist in the Lubbock Regional.
“I definitely feel like people think we’re villains,” said Terry, who leads the team with a .471 average and boasts a 1.30 ERA in 118 1/3 innings pitched. “We have a target on our back, for sure. We hear it a lot: ‘Oh, they just bought a team.’ But we know what we’re doing, and what other people say doesn’t matter.”
Even if those people say it loudly.
Hours after Pannell announced her commitment to Tech, Tennessee coach Karen Weekly posted on social media a scathing rebuke of alleged cheating in the sport, closing with, “Money isn’t the issue — tampering is!” Many interpreted Weekly’s post to be directed at Glasco and Texas Tech. She told The Athletic this week that the post wasn’t necessarily a shot at them, “but there’s no question they were in contact with our player long before the season was over. … A financial agreement was signed with Texas Tech before she ever went in the portal. (She) told me that.”
Texas Tech on Wednesday said in a statement to The Athletic: “We are aware of these allegations and believe the recruitment followed all parameters in place at that time. We have been in contact with the NCAA.”
I think we can all agree on 2 things: 1) women making money in sports is awesome and long overdue; 2) contacting players (directly or indirectly) before their season ends and signing them to NIL deals before they enter the portal is wrong. Money isn’t the issue – tampering is!
— Karen Weekly (@KarenWeekly) June 13, 2025
In the new pay-for-play era, Tech’s athletic department has been the beneficiary of two billionaire oil tycoons, Cody Campbell and John Sellers, both of whom played football for the Red Raiders. Sellers’ wife, the former Tracy Cartier, played softball at Tech from 2001 to 2003. The stadium is named after Tracy, and it was the Sellers who originally committed so much money to Canady.
Campbell and Sellers have flooded Red Raiders coaches with money, allowing them to assemble all-star rosters that instantly made them national contenders. Texas Tech planned to pay out an estimated $55 million to athletes during the 2025-26 academic year. Football, men’s and women’s basketball and softball have experienced tremendous success in the last two years, often to the chagrin of rivals.
“I think what’s upsetting other schools is they thought, ‘Oh, that’s cute, Texas Tech made it to the finals last year and were a game away from winning it,’” said Sellers, the deep-pocketed donor. “But we’re here to stay, and I don’t think they like that.”
It’s true, said Terry and Canady, that it feels like because they’ve been labeled the bad guys, no one wants to play them; hence, Tech’s relatively poor RPI of 13. The Red Raiders’ nonconference schedule was underwhelming to say the least, as they thumped schools like Abilene Christian (Tech won 24-0), Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (18-0) and Louisiana-Monroe (13-1), among others.
At February’s Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic just outside Palm Springs, Calif., billed as one of the marquee nonconference tournaments in college softball, numerous top-10 programs squared off against each other. Meanwhile, at the same event, Tech beat up on Fresno State, Bethune-Cookman, Cal State Fullerton, San Diego State and UC Riverside by a combined score of 47-5.
“Texas Tech had a lot of teams that chose not to or elected to not play them, and a lot of it had to do with the transfer of players and other things,” said Kirk Walker, co-founder and owner of the Mary Nutter.
NiJaree Canady, who transferred to Tech from Stanford after the 2024 season, is 22-5 with a 1.24 ERA. ( Nathan Giese / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
Glasco refuses to whine about it.
“This isn’t new. This has been happening to Patty Gasso and Oklahoma for 10 years,” Glasco said, referencing the Sooners’ dominant run through softball, which made scheduling challenging for a stretch. “When I was (coaching) at Louisiana (in 2024), she called me and said, ‘I can’t get anyone to come to my tournament.’ I said, ‘I’ll be there’ — and that’s how we ended their 71-game win streak.”
Terry and Canady seemed nonplussed, too. The way they see it, the toughest games Tech could schedule have already happened several times this season: intrasquad scrimmages, when the Red Raiders play the Red Raiders. Terry joked that after numerous fall scrimmages, there were times during regular-season games when she thought to herself, “Wow, this is so much easier than fall practice!”
Canady, whose 1.24 ERA is sixth best in the nation, agreed.
“Intrasquads were fun but so, so hard. The lineups we were facing were insane,” she said. “When I get in the circle, my attitude is, ‘There’s no one I could face that’s better than Mia or Taylor.’”
She pitches to them — and strikes them out — regularly, so the way Canady sees it, she’s ready for anything. No one intimidates her.
With Canady, it’s usually the other way around. The senior has a lethal arsenal of pitches led by her rise ball, which has fooled many of the sport’s best hitters. Her celebratory foot stomp — echoing far beyond Lubbock — has a history of making opponents wilt in the batter’s box. She is the main reason Tech, according to DraftKings, still has the second-best odds to win the 2026 WCWS (+300), just behind third-seeded Oklahoma (+200). Alabama and Texas, the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds, are both +500.
An improvement at the plate should bolster Tech’s chances, too. A year after the Red Raiders’ bats went silent late in the postseason, they are leading the nation in batting average (.388) and rank third in home runs (125).
Canady and Terry are adamant that if you spend time around the Red Raiders, you’d never label them villains. Terry said they’re “really goofy” anytime they’re around each other. Canady said she knows it’s easy for people to assume the players are motivated only by money, but “we’re fighting for each other, we wanna win for each other.”
Glasco’s seen it, too.
“This is one of the closest teams I’ve ever had,” he said. “It’s unbelievable how much they care about each other.”
He knew they’d be loaded with talent, but the camaraderie caught him off guard — in a good way. And it has absolutely played a part in the team’s 52-6 record.
“I feel great about where we are,” Glasco said. “In softball, if you’ve lost less than a third of your games, you have a special team.”
Special, Cinderella, scorned — none of the descriptions matter, the Red Raiders say. The only thing they care about being called, if they can get it done, is national champs.
Stewart Mandel contributed to this story.
