The five most interesting games on Arizona Football's 2024 schedule

Arizona v Arizona State
Arizona v Arizona State | Christian Petersen/GettyImages
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Cedric Peterson, Zech McPhearson
Texas Tech v Arizona | Christian Petersen/GettyImages

For starters, I'd like to start calling this matchup "The Old West Revivalry". This matchup occurs in Week 6 in Tucson, and has a surprisingly storied history behind it. Texas Tech was founded in 1925, and they started playing Arizona just seven years later in 1932. The two were both members of the Border Conference from 1932-57, when 19 of the series' 33 games took place. In this time, Arizona went 1-17-1. They played for six straight seasons from 1932-37, a one-off game in 1942, then another 14 straight seasons from 1946-59, and the final stretch of annual games came from 1971-79.

Since then, there was a home-and-home scheduled in 1988 and 1989 and a one-off matchup in 2019. One of the most interesting parts of this, though, is Arizona's 5-26-2 all-time-record against Texas Tech and the fact that two of those wins came in the last three matchups. The tides have shifted dramatically in recent years and, though it will take a long time to even out the series, this is a much more evenly-matched showdown nowadays.

Texas Tech could take a massive step forward, and it all depends on junior quarterback Behren Morton. Morton won the starting quarterback job last season and completed over 62% of his passes while still having room for development and a reliable running back in Tahj Brooks as a great safety valve. Brooks, who posted over 1,500 rushing yards last season, will be returning to Texas Tech in 2024 and will bring juice to the offense. They will be without wide receivers Myles Price (Indiana) and Jerrand Bradley (Boston College), but they were replaced by Josh Kelly from Washington State and Caleb Douglas from Florida.