graham harrell 2025 NFF COLLEGE FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME CLASS

Graham Harrell

By Matt Fortuna

Graham Harrell remembers sitting in his father's office and watching Dana Holgorsen go to work on the whiteboard, drawing up the offense he envisioned Harrell running at Texas Tech. He remembers being stuck in Mike Leach's office for hours on his visit to Lubbock, with the late head coach performing magic tricks and telling war stories that had nothing to do with football.

Somehow, that combo clicked for Harrell. And somehow, that group of Red Raiders ended up revolutionizing football at every level. Add it all up, and Harrell is now a College Football Hall of Famer, joining teammate Michael Crabtree and becoming the seventh Red Raider to earn the honor.

"That whole part of it is probably the part that's the most special," Harrell said. "The influence that I think those teams and particularly Mike Leach's style of football had on football."

Harrell is Texas Tech's career leader in passing yards (15,793), touchdown passes (134), pass attempts (2,011), completions (1,403), passing yards per game (350.9), 300-yard games (32) and 400-yard games (20). He broke seven NCAA records during his career. He is the only quarterback to lead the Big 12 in passing yards in three different seasons.

He finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 2008, just ahead of Crabtree, who finished fifth. More importantly, Texas Tech finished that season 11-1, rising as high as No. 2 in the major polls. The highlight, of course, was a memorable primetime win over then-undefeated Texas, with Brent Musburger on the call as Harrell hit Crabtree for the game-winning touchdown with 1 second left. But Harrell had plenty of other big moments with the Red Raiders that shouldn't get overshadowed.

"The game that everyone always remembers is the Texas game," he said. "Probably my favorite game was my sophomore year: We won in a really similar fashion, I threw a fade to Robert Johnson down the right side against Texas A&M and it was at Kyle Field. So doing it on the road, you didn't feel like you beat just the 100 people on the other side; you feel like you beat the 100,000 Aggie fans that were standing there."

Harrell is familiar with the NFF Annual Awards Dinner, as he was a finalist for the William V. Campbell Trophy® in 2008. He played with the Green Bay Packers for three seasons, earning a ring from Super Bowl XLV. He was the offensive coordinator for Abilene Christian this season, after calling plays at Purdue, West Virginia, USC and North Texas.

His father was his prep coach, and Harrell always figured he would get into the profession. What he could not have envisioned was just the sheer number of folks from his Air Raid days at Texas Tech who would also join him.

"When you sit back, what's the craziest is how many guys on that year that were on that staff or that played for Mike Leach just during that little 10-year run that he had there at Tech that are all over every level of football it seems like," Harrell said. "You've got Eric Morris, you've got so many guys on the college level, but a lot of my teammates are high school coaches too now. Lyle Leong was one of our receivers, he's the head coach at Levelland, which is right out there by Lubbock.

"There's a bunch of guys that were on our team that are high school head coaches now, so you get on the road and you go see those dudes coaching ball at that level. And you've got Kliff (Kingsbury) and dudes doing it at the NFL level.

"So, at every level of football it seems like somebody that was a part of that program during that little run there is still impacting it, and it's kind of crazy to look at and crazy to think about how many people. And some of it is just a testament to the people that were there. We were surrounded by and influenced by great coaches, and it made us want to go on and do the same thing, and I don't think that's the case everywhere."

Harrell's college career saw him cross paths with future head coaches such as Holgorsen, Seth Littrell, Eric Morris, Ruffin McNeill and Lincoln Riley. The Air Raid, a wonder at the time, is now commonplace all across the game.

"I think there's some validation to that (era)," Harrell said. "The cool part about it to me, and still being in the profession, I tell everyone: Football's still a people's game. And that's the thing that makes it the most special and makes it the most fun is the people you do it with, whether it's the coaches or players or your teammates or whoever it is."