Joey McGuire has made his ambitions at Texas Tech no secret. Finishing his first season in Lubbock 8-5, McGuire feels his team is ready to take the next step.
“I definitely think we have an opportunity to be a better football team this year and we’re excited to go into camp and and start building what that team’s gonna look like,” McGuire said Thursday at Big 12 media days.
This year’s Red Raiders team includes 18 returning starters from its Texas Bowl win, and what McGuire called the fastest recruiting class in the country.
Recruiting is a pillar of any program, and as a former high school coach, McGuire still emphasizes the importance of high school recruiting in the age of the transfer portal.
“We still are heavy high school recruiters,” McGuire said. “The transfer portal for us is more of filling gaps. We only took six guys this year, because we want to build recruiting at the high school level.”
With the highs of last season, and Texas’ impending departure, McGuire sees an opportunity to become the flagship Texas program in the Big 12. Texas Tech’s overtime win over Texas last season symbolized that opportunity, and the two teams will meet again this year in Texas’ final Big 12 regular season game.
Following that win was when McGuire shouted in the locker that “everything runs through Lubbock,” a statement and idea that he and the programing are embracing.
“There’s nothing that comes out of my mouth and I don’t truly 100% believe,” McGuire said on the statement. “Whenever you have that in a locker room, you can do some incredible things. And I think our players do believe that.
“Whenever you have an administration and an alumni base that is behind the university like they are in Texas Tech, you do have that opportunity.”
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