Texas Tech football scores a unifying hit by hiring Baylor’s Joey McGuire | Opinion
After vetting and unofficially talking to several candidates, Texas Tech ultimately wanted a Texan who understands West Texas, and would come to Lubbock with not a single string or piece of carry-on baggage.
Texas Tech has hired Baylor assistant coach Joey McGuire as its next football coach. The Lubbock Avalanche Journal’s Carlos Silva Jr. and Don Williams reported the hire first.
There was a vacancy after Tech fired Matt Wells in late October.
Unlike Tech’s previous three hires for this job, no one can find a reason to knock this move.
Hiring McGuire has the type of potential that Tech seeks, but even the most ardent Red Raiders supporters admit there is some risk here. McGuire has never been a college football head coach.
To reduce the risk, and help in McGuire’s learning curve, Tech has promised McGuire he will have the largest pool of money to hire assistant coaches of the remaining schools in the Big 12.
Unlike the decision to hire Wells in 2019, which was not popular and caused a rift among some Tech administrators and prominent boosters with athletic director Kirby Hocutt, there are no such issues with McGuire.
Hocutt did not go it alone on this hire.
There was a push for Art Briles or even Mike Leach, and Tech talked to SMU’s Sonny Dykes and was interested in UTSA’s Jeff Traylor and Texas A&M defensive coordinator Mike Elko. But McGuire had too many stars on his résumé to ignore.
They wanted a Texan who has connections to Texas high school football, who will embrace West Texas and all things Lubbock.
While that was not a problem with Kliff Kingsbury, two of the last three coaches at Texas Tech never did “get” Texas Tech. And there was an issue with all three.
Tommy Tuberville, who coached at Texas Tech from 2010 to 2012, never wanted to be there. He just wanted to be a college head coach.
The concern with Kingsbury when Hocutt hired him to replace Tuberville was that he was a reach; as a former Red Raiders quarterback, Kingsbury loved Tech and wanted to be there.
The concern, however, was that he built his coaching résumé based almost exclusively as the quarterbacks “coach” at Texas A&M when Johnny Manziel was doing whatever he wanted to do.
Wells, who came to Texas Tech from Utah State with no Texas roots, never had a chance.
McGuire, who is a graduate of Crowley high school and the UT Arlington, built a résumé of his own without connections or daddy’s famous last name.
He spent two seasons at Crowley as an assistant coach before leaving for Cedar Hill in 1997.
He was named the head coach at Cedar Hill in 2003. Between 2003 and 2014, McGuire was 141-42 with three state titles and four state title game appearances.
When Matt Rhule was hired by Baylor in December of 2016, he made hiring Texas high school coaches to his staff a priority.
Rhule named McGuire tight ends coach in 2017. After Rhule left following the 2019 season, new coach Dave Aranda promoted McGuire to associate head coach.
With Baylor ranked in the Top 25, it was only a matter of time before McGuire left to become a head coach.
McGuire becomes Texas Tech’s fourth full-time head coach since it fired Leach in 2009.
There is some risk here, but for the first time in more than a decade all of Texas Tech can agree that this is a good hire.
This story was originally published November 8, 2021 at 9:35 AM.
