McGuire Looks Forward to Spring Ball
Just like that, Red Raider football is upon us with spring ball just around the corner. Head Coach Joey McGuire met with the media this morning to preview what’s to come in the spring activities for the 2026 team.
Opening Statement
“”We had football school today. And then we’ll go how much in spiders on Tuesday and Thursday. Give them spring break to have a little break and we’ll be in full pads by March 24th. It’s been going really good. I love this team. I love the energy in the building.
Yesterday, I think the guys got a lot out of it. Caleb Rogers spoke to the team and had a great PowerPoint. Just talked about stuff that he’s gone through as a rookie. And then Jacob Rodriguez did a Q&A with the team just talking about the combine and interviews, stuff they need to expect. Jalen Pitre from the Houston Texans had a zoom meeting with the safeties. Cam Ward had a zoom meeting with the quarterbacks 2 weeks ago. Then Terrel Bernard, linebacker for the Buffalo Bills, will have a zoom meeting with the linebackers next week. So just trying to pour into these guys and get ready for a great spring.”
What the Recruiting Period Looked Like and What He Personally Has Liked What He’s Seen With This Group
“I want to start by one part moving it over here and answering it now. You say that I’ve said that they’ve played their best football statistically without a doubt. I want to say that for the recruiting side, is when you come to Texas Tech you are going to play your best football of your career for a lot of different reasons.
I’m really fired up about Coach (Jacquies) Smith, and Coach (Imarjay) Albury. They have brought in just an elite level experience. Any time you walk into a room and like Adam Trick’s goal is to play in the NFL and he’s being coached by Coach Smith who just left the NFL. He had 2 rookies that had 17 and a half sacks. I think guys are already wanting to learn and listen. But when you walk in and have that on your resume it makes such a big deal. And same way with Coach Albury. So I’m really excited about those guys.
It’s pretty easy to say I don’t know if I’ll ever coach another David Bailey or Lee Hunter for different reasons, but I think we will to. There’s going to be guys who develop that way. One of the biggest things that we try to do is where we lost NFL players, we replaced them with NFL players. We lose David Bailey and Romello Height, you guys are going to fall in love with Adam Trick and Trey White. Just 2 elite humans that love football. They’re extremely happy here. You lose Lee Hunter, you bring in Bryce Butler, you bring in Mateen (Ibirogba), JoJo (Johnson), Julien (Laventure), so you’re losing guys you return AJ Holmes. You lose Jacob Rodriguez, and you bring in Austin Romaine.
That was (James) Blanchard and his crew, the coaching staff on the eval side. We were very deliberate in when you lose somebody at that caliber we got to replace them with somebody of that caliber if you’re going to do it through the transfer portal, or you already have that on your team. On the other side, you have Coy coming back, but then you were able to add Kenny (Johnson), Donte (Lee), JJ (Jalen Jones) and Malcolm (Simmons) so who’s going to come out of that room and be the leaders. You lose John-Carlos Miller, and you were able to add Jett Carpenter.
We feel really good about the guys that we added. Now we just got to continue to bring them together and one of the big things about spring football is they got to learn how to play Red Raider Football. There’s a way to play it we’re trying to build. We learned a tough lesson after I think it was 2023 maybe or 24 where we lost Steve Linton we didn’t replace him with a Steve Linton. It showed because we couldn’t get to the quarterback. So that was the mindset of learning and growing like if you lose a guy like this you better either have that guy on your roster, or you better find a replacement for him through the portal.”
Rebuilding the Leadership
“That’s the thing we’re going through right now that we’re trying to continue to build. I don’t think I’ve ever said this, but like last year in January I told Behren Morton and Jacob Rodriguez ‘look, if we win it’s going to be because of you and if we lose it’s going to be because of you.’ As being funny with the second statement I said the same thing to Ben Roberts and John Curry, Sheridan Wilson, Coy Eakin. It was their job to help me bring this team together when we were in the process of doing that.
The one thing that we do in the portal also though is we try to find guys that were leaders on their team where they’re coming from. So Adam Trick was a captain, Trey White was a captain, Austin Romaine was a tremendous leader, Soresby a tremendous leader on their team. So we try to bring those guys in, and then right off the bat try to give them a voice in some different ways whether its the weight room to encourage them to start becoming those leaders.
And then, you expect your leaders you’ve been grooming for these positions to step up. I said to a couple of them like Coy. J’Koby Williams has made a huge step in using his voice, Jacob Ponton. That’s the special sauce whatever you want to call it. The difference between last year’s team is just the leadership and player led team. We cant assume that’s going to happen as coaches because it happened last year. So it’s really through our culture meetings and all the different things we’re trying to do. Our breakfasts on Friday mornings trying to bring this team together. And find out who our leaders are.”
Learning From the Orange Bowl Experience
“I think the biggest thing is just keep digging in to how you can practice with 25 days off. You lose all momentum. Like we win the Big 12 and we were riding a lot of momentum. If you play that on a regular bye you carry some of that momentum. 25 days later you forget you played a game. its’ like figuring out how to almost start all over to an extent.
That’s what we have done and trying to do as a coaching staff. The one team that’s done it is not giving away any secrets. It’s really a process that you were trying to dig into and try to find answers to because in the last 2 years no one has done it except Indiana and Indiana is obviously the best team in the country. So it might not have mattered with their 25 days off one way or the other. That’s the biggest thing that we’re trying as a coaching staff.
Are we more physical early in that 25 days off? Do we have a mock game? I saw Oregon did that and talked to Dan (Lanning) about that. Do we do something like that? Then you’re also how banged up are you coming out of the conference championship game? Do you lose somebody trying to get ready for a 25 day layoff. You talk to NFL guys and they have no answers either because they don’t have to do that. There’s not a lot of people you can lean on to figure that out I guess there’s one and that’s it. Cignetti.
We played horrible and played great on defense. Some of these guys are saying we didn’t perform well. But it’s easy to throw stuff at Texas Tech because we don’t have the so called ‘blue blood label’ that everybody else does. They’re going to find out we’re not going anywhere.”
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