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Going into the 2025 season, the Texas Tech football team thought it had a three-headed monster for a running back rotation led by three sophomores: USC transfer Quinten Joyner and returners J’Koby Williams and Cameron Dickey.
When Joyner went down with his season-ending knee injury in the preseason, it was assumed that the backfield setup would be a two-man game.
Perhaps it’s time to add Adam Hill’s name to the rotation.
Playing primarily in garbage time in the second half, the redshirt-freshman out of Albany has made the most of his time on the field. Against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, he averaged 11.1 yards on his seven carries to lead scoring drives in the 67-7 blowout. He upped the ante a bit in Saturday’s matchup with Kent State.
Texas Tech was again coasting, up 48-0 at halftime, allowing Hill to take the lion’s share of the carries in the third and fourth quarters. Hill took the opportunity for more playing time and ran with it — literally.
Hill became the first Texas Tech running back to hit 100 yards this season, totaling 127 yards on 16 carries to punctuate the Red Raiders’ 62-14 throttling of Kent State.
“That wasn’t on my bingo card,” Joey McGuire said of Hill’s feat. “I was proud of him. Really proud of him.
Though Williams and Dickey have monopolized the carries when the game wasn’t a blowout, Hill’s emergence as a hard-nosed runner could be beneficial to Texas Tech moving forward.
“We call him Adam Downhill,” McGuire said of the 6-foot-1, 230-pound back. “I wanted him to get downhill again this week. I asked him how much did you weigh today? And he said 230-plus, and I said ‘Well then, they need to feel 230 pounds today.'”
Hill did have a gaffe in the third quarter, fumbling the ball away for Texas Tech’s first turnover of the season. That comes with the lack of experience prior to this season.
“I know the first thing he’s going to say to me whenever I get to see him is that, the fumble, we got to have better ball security,” McGuire said. “But I’m proud of him.”
Before August, it seemed a stretch for Hill to see the field much beyond special teams. Joyner’s injury has opened the door for a bit more opportunity. Williams (54 yards on nine carries) and Dickey (two touchdowns on eight carries) will continue to get the rock more than anyone.
But with Texas Tech, there’s always a worst-case scenario to account for. Should the two returners go down with injuries of their own, Hill has shown he’s capable of holding his own. The first step to that happening, though, is to get a carry in the first half of a game that hasn’t already been decided.
“That’s been really big for him to get those reps,” McGuire said, “because we’re going to need him at some point.”
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