BIG 12 CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA DAYS

July 14, 2022

Joey McGuire

Texas Tech Red Raiders

Press Conference

JOEY McGUIRE: How lucky are we to be in this stadium and doing this. I know everything that I love and everything that y'all love, appreciate y'all. We have some incredible memories as a family in this stadium. Got to win two state championships in '13 and '14 and played in a Big 12 Championship in '19, so just a special place.

I'm extremely honored to represent Texas Tech, our administration, the best AD in the country in Kirby Hocutt, my coaches, and of course my players.

I would like to thank Bob Bowlsby for -- I'm now going in this conference for six years and just thanking him for his leadership and really his friendship. Went out of his way even as an assistant coach to talk to me on game day, and I appreciate it.

Really excited about our new commissioner. I think he brings a very different perspective. I can't wait to work with him. I think y'all know he's called every head coach, and you could feel his energy over the phone, so I'm really excited about that.

The thing at Texas Tech that we really believe, we believe that success off the field translates into success on the field. So I'm just going to give you some numbers that we're really proud of this spring and this summer. We've had over 800 hours of community service. We have 17 graduates on our team. We have 12 guys that have a 4.0 or better. We have 60 guys that have a 3.0 or better. This spring seven of my nine positions had a 3.0 as a position group.

So really, really proud of what our guys have done.

I'll tell you, a lot of y'all know me; I believe that they would buy in to what we were going to do, but I didn't think it was going to be as fast as it has been. It's just been incredible, the trust that the players have put into us and how hard they've been working in the spring and in the summer, and so really excited about this football team.

Before we take questions, I'll just kind of tell you the guys that I brought. Myles Price, wide receiver, he's from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We brought our left tackle Caleb Rogers from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Our outside linebacker Tyree Wilson, he's from east Texas. He's a college graduate. He started his master's. Also brought Dadrion "Rabbit" Taylor. He's from Oklahoma. He plays free safety for us. And our representative for Champions for Life, Tony Bradford, Jr. He'd be mad at me if I didn't say The North Shore. He played defensive tackle. He is also a college graduate and has started his master's.

So really proud of these guys and can't wait to August and report and get going.

With that, I'll open it up to any questions.

Q. I was just asking if you could talk about your offensive coordinator and kind of where that offensive identity will lie this year. I know he brings a lot of passing experience in the air-raid, and just kind of talk about what that new identity will look like this year.

JOEY McGUIRE: You know, it's interesting, whenever I talked to him, the one thing about Kittley is he'll say we have air-raid concepts but we're not a true air-raid. Where I fell in love with him, we've been talking a lot over the last couple years, but in the interview, he said, Coach, I'm going to find our best 11 players, I'm going to get them on the field, and we're going to score a lot of points. He said, you know, whenever I was at Western Kentucky, it was our best 11. We had four really good receivers. At Texas Tech we have three really good tight ends. So it's going to look a little bit different.

One thing about me, I'm a defensive coach, so we're going to play complementary football. But at the end of the day, you've got to score one more point than your opponent to win the game, and he's going to figure out how to do that.

Really excited, man. One of the brightest young coaches in the country.

Q. Can you talk about you obviously came up through the high school ranks in the state of Texas, what that meant for you, your time at Baylor, and then obviously now being the head coach at Texas Tech, what your time as a high school head football coach in Texas has allowed you to do as far as recruiting and all that type of stuff?

JOEY McGUIRE: Well, the one thing I always say, and I believe this, it's not just a little slogan, but I'm a high school coach that gets to coach college football. My DNA is a high school coach. For the guys that have never coached high school football, line up against Lee Wiginton or Eddy Peach whenever he was alive and see what kind of coaches those guys are.

What it's allowed me to do is I was part of the Texas High School Coaches Association's board of directors, was able to make great contacts, and I think the Texas high school coaches understand: What we say, we're going to do; that they can trust us to take care of their players.

And whenever you can walk into a high school or walk into a house and the head coach knows, hey, this guy is what he's all about, what he says, what he's going to do, it makes a huge impact on those guys. And I think it showed in the recruiting class that we signed and in the group that we're recruiting right now.

Q. Does bringing in Zach Kittley kind of counter these improving defenses that we've seen in the Big 12 in recent years?

JOEY McGUIRE: Well, I think -- that is a great question, because the Big 12 is not the Big 12 of five years ago. You look at what Iowa State has done running the football and 12 and 13 personnel, what Baylor did last year in 11 and 12 personnel. I think it's different. I think it gives us a unique look. It gives us a true identity on offense, and it's going to strain some people.

I think Coach Kittley and our offensive staff have a great identity. I think they have a great look of this is what we're going to look like.

You've got to score points to win football games, and that's what we're going to try to do in west Texas.

Q. Since you've been announced head coach, your recruiting has gone up, and you just announced a current expansion to your current facilities. How pivotal has the fan base, administration, boosters, all that, been to your off-season success?

JOEY McGUIRE: I mean, have you ever been to a basketball game in west Texas? Of course that was after football, so we go 18-0 in basketball, and we're bringing in Junior Days, and it's Mississippi State and we're playing in front of 15,000 people. It's really easy to see and show recruits: This is who we are and this is our fan base.

My daughter is a Red Raider, and I thought I knew what the alumni and the fans -- I felt their passion. I thought I did until I became the head coach, and I've never seen anything like it. The love for that university is absolutely incredible, and we're using it like crazy whenever it comes to recruiting.

Then whenever you talk about a brand-new facility, I think it's going to be the best in the country. It's going to be very unique. It's going to tie four fields together that you can just walk across a sky bridge and be in the indoor or be on the game field.

It's a really big deal for us, and I think it's a game changer.

Q. First college head coaching job for you; just has it really sunk in for you, just going down to the Jones that first game? Do you get goosebumps just thinking about you're living out your dream?

JOEY McGUIRE: I really am. You know what, a moment was our little kids' camp. We had Fearless Champion out there, we had the Masked Rider, we had the cheerleaders, and we ended little kids' camp, our young camp with them running down the tunnel and onto the field.

I'm standing at the 50-yard line at the logo, I'm not running out, but just seeing those young kids and the smiles on their faces, that probably is kind of the closest moment up until now and to game 1, I cannot wait. I can't wait to come out in front of those fans. I'm glad that we're opening at home.

I'll tell you a really cool -- we need to do this research. Whenever we come out on September 3rd, we have a new Masked Rider that we have every year, but we've got a brand-new horse and we've got a brand-new head coach, so three are going to come out together for the very first time in Texas Tech history, and that's going to be really cool.

Q. You mentioned that the new facility was going to be a game changer, but could you just elaborate on what that does for you from the standpoint of recruiting, setting a tone, all those sorts of things as a first-year coach?

JOEY McGUIRE: Well, I think the biggest thing is it shows that we are committed to excellence. We're committed -- we have a brand-new basketball practice facility, the Womble, that's state-of-the-art. We have a great addition and it's continued to add to our baseball facility with Coach Tadlock, and now that South End Zone project along with our new football facility shows that we're serious about our athletics at the university and that we're serious about being the best of the best, so that's the plan.

Excited. Every one of our recruits, whenever we've been able to show them the different renderings, have just been fired up and can't wait to be a part of it.

Q. You mentioned that this isn't the same Big 12 as we had five years ago, and it won't be the same Big 12 five years from now. As a first-time head coach, how do you feel Texas Tech is positioned for the future of college football?

JOEY McGUIRE: Yeah, I think -- I said in my opening statement, I think I work for the best AD in the country, and I think the way he approaches things puts us in a really good position. So we're excited.

Whatever happens, I heard -- I listened to everybody's press conference yesterday, and of course I heard our new commissioner that we're open for business. I do think that the Big 12 will look different. I think we have a great opportunity to just make our conference even stronger.

I think we're going to put ourselves with the facilities, with the amount of different degrees and the different things you can study at Texas Tech, we're going to put ourselves in a really good position to be a part of something special in the Big 12.

Q. You spent several years there at Baylor; what went into that decision, and what were those conversations like with Dave Aranda as you left Baylor to go take this job at Texas Tech?

JOEY McGUIRE: Well, first of all, I can't thank that fan base and that university enough. My son graduated from there, and what better head coaches to work for than Matt Rhule and Dave Aranda, and what they did for my family was just absolutely incredible.

From the beginning whenever I told Coach that I had an opportunity to interview at Texas Tech, we're right in the middle of the Big 12 race and we're in a really good position to play for the Big 12 Championship, and they did, and he had nothing but good things to encourage me with and from the get-go had my back and said, Coach, you have to take this opportunity that presents.

It was tough that week leaving because I was so close with those players. I loved those guys. But this opportunity at Texas Tech, there was no way I could pass it up.

Q. You just talked a little bit about Baylor. Dave Aranda said he still has a lot of love for you. They all described you as a high-energy guy. Where does that energy come from? What gets you up in the morning?

JOEY McGUIRE: The players. I really believe that coaching is a calling, and you have an opportunity to change lives. Every single day whenever my feet hit the floor, I make a choice, no matter if sometimes my wife is upset with me that I didn't pick something up or I didn't do something at home, of course, but no matter what happens throughout the day, when my feet hit the floor in the morning, I make a choice to be fired up and excited because I get a chance to make our players the best version of theirselves. That's what we truly believe in. We are a player-centered program. It's all about them.

I do think the new facilities take a big part in that, also. But that's what fires me up. I'm a lot like my mama. That's how she was, and I learned from her.

It's a choice. We've got a choice to get up every morning and be happy and excited and make a difference in people's lives.

Q. I'm curious as you travel around and you meet with other Red Raiders, you're right, you saw it in basketball, the excitement that there is, but this is a school that badly wants to be good in football. Can you put a point on that feeling that you get from Tech people of how bad they want you to succeed and lift the program to another level?

JOEY McGUIRE: That's a really good question. You know, what's really cool is like everywhere I go, there's a Red Raider. We're actually -- the players and I were talking about that last night at dinner, that whenever we're at, there's somebody that's connected. Every high school we go into -- it doesn't necessarily have to be a coach, it could be an administrator, it could be a teacher. The love that they have for that university.

I know we're in the Big 12, but we're in the state of Texas, and football is extremely important in the state of Texas at all levels. I think we've had a taste of it at different times. I'm really excited about what we can do with this team. But it's really important to this fan base to get this team right and to win games, and, man, I'm just glad to be a part of it.

I will say our fan base and probably my wife wants to win more than anybody, and so no pressure at home or anything like that, but hear it all the time.

Q. Yesterday Mike Gundy mentioned that there may be a shift in recruiting with recruits not necessarily caring what conference they go to so much. I wanted to ask you, having so much high school experience, how much does the patch on your jersey, the conference, matter in recruiting nowadays?

JOEY McGUIRE: That is a great question because you can't say it doesn't matter. You can't say that -- but at the end of the day I think the product you're putting on the field, the opportunity that they have, especially with their parents and what they're going to study at that university, I think the facilities that they're going to play in and the stadium they're going to play in, I think the fan base plays a big part of that.

But I do think you are going to have a shift of different things when it comes to either recruiting high school players, guys that are coming, have entered the portal, different things like that, are going to make a big difference in the conference.

But at the end of the day we have an opportunity to strengthen this conference, and I think that we definitely will.

Q. This was your first time putting together a collegiate staff, and you pulled from a lot of different places. What was kind of your philosophy going into putting together a staff, and what were you looking for?

JOEY McGUIRE: Well, it had to start really -- it didn't start -- this is going to sound crazy. It didn't start with Xs and Os. I told our staff, and I tell them every day, if you can't come in here and put the players first, you're in the wrong place. So it started with guys that truly believed in that philosophy.

Then it went from the scheme and different people that I knew. It was really big to hire Tim DeRuyter. He's been a head coach. There's so many times in college, there's so many times that I go into his office and say, hey, take your defensive coordinator hat off, put your head coaching hat on, make sure I'm going in the right direction. That was huge.

It was huge to get good connections. You asked earlier about Texas high school coaches, to put those guys together.

I wanted to make sure that we brought a bunch of guys in the building that could get along, that cared about each other. Of course it's my job to build that chemistry on the coaching staff, but we have some really, really good coaches, and I'm really excited about our staff. I think we have as good a staff as anybody in the country.

Q. Joey, when you look as a brand-new head coach, one of the major things is that you have to find your right quarterback, and to have Donovan and Tyler both work in Lubbock and also work in a system like Zach's, how important is it for you to have those guys building off of last season? And more specifically, what does it mean to have them already in the building to where you can build with the offense?

JOEY McGUIRE: That's a great question. I don't want to leave out Behren Morton. We have a three-horse race in this competition. I wasn't worried about somebody leaving and naming a quarterback or anything like that. I wanted them to truly win it, and they all had great springs, but nobody separated theirselves.

I told Coach Kittley, he will never in his career have a room like he has, that we have three guys that can go win football games. We have three guys that all can extend plays with their feet. We have three guys that have exceptional arm talent.

It's not like he has to call a different offense because he has somebody that's a pro-style guy back there. They're competing extremely hard. I've told everybody in Lubbock and our fan base, we're not going to rotate quarterbacks, but you're going to see packages with possibly all three of them.

I'll just give you an example. If Donovan Smith doesn't win the job, I would be crazy not to have a 6'5" 240-pound quarterback not running quarterback power on the goal line.

So that's one of the things that we're really trying to do, what do these guys do well and how they can help us win football games.

Q. Coach, you're not that far removed from being a high school coach; how has your attitude towards high school football rankings, college football rankings, recruiting rankings changed from 2013 to today, and how accurate do you feel are they?

JOEY McGUIRE: Well, that is an incredible question because the one thing about us is we are totally different. I mean, if somebody has a ranking with the most athletic class and the fastest class in the nation, that's the one we want to be in.

From the standpoint of different rankings, the way I look at it is are they a Texas Tech football player, do they fit in what we want to do. And we truly believe that we're a developmental program, and we don't shy away from that, and we don't think that's a bad word. We want to take high school kids that have athletic traits that we can develop.

I look at it, it's great for our fans, but I also tell our fans, too, we're ahead of a lot of people whenever it comes to guys that haven't been ranked yet, so just wait because they will be at some point. We don't stray away from our model, our blueprint.

I learned that from Matt Rhule. I think you saw that in 2019 and 2021. I definitely think you saw that in the NFL Draft this year and in the NFL combine; that when you recruit that way, then you can develop some really, really good football players.