Somewhere high above the plains of West Texas, the Big 12 championship trophy sat buckled safely beside Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire, headed home to Lubbock.<\/p>\n
McGuire\u2019s wife, Debbie, stayed behind in Dallas with family following the Red Raiders\u2019 conference title win over BYU on Dec. 6. It saved her husband from a difficult decision on seating arrangements.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trophy was strapped into her seat,\u201d said McGuire. \u201cShe might have had to move if she flew back with us, because that trophy was going to stay really close to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a shimmering token of Texas Tech football\u2019s 12-1 season and first outright conference championship since 1955, the team\u2019s ticket to a top-four seed and first-round bye in the College Football Playoff. It also represented an ambition stated and realized, a memento that rallied a fan base together and brought billionaires to tears<\/a>. Winning that trophy wasn\u2019t easy, or cheap, but the payoff was priceless.<\/p>\n For McGuire in particular, the precious cargo represented validation for a former high school coach whose boundless energy and optimism elevated a program so desperately pining for it. McGuire embraced Texas Tech \u2014 and Lubbock, and West Texas \u2014 for exactly what it is, and steered it somewhere it\u2019s never been.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what people wanted out here in West Texas: a very genuine guy who is going to find any way he can to win football games,\u201d said quarterback Behren Morton. \u201cI love that man. He\u2019s done a lot for this program.\u201d<\/p>\n The Red Raiders have been one of the main plot lines of this college football season, a traditionally scrappy challenger turned contender suddenly flush with oil money. Coming off an 8-5 season in 2024, the team loudly and proudly spent $25 million on this year\u2019s roster<\/a>, putting a \u201cBig 12 title or bust\u201d bull\u2019s-eye on its back.<\/p>\n \u201cThe last box (to check) is, Texas Tech has never won the Big 12, never played in the Big 12 championship,\u201d McGuire told The Athletic this summer. \u201cThat\u2019s why this year is so critical.\u201d<\/p>\n Mission accomplished. While there is grumbling about buying a championship, Tech fans will sip those sour grapes as they cheer on their Red Raiders against Oregon on New Year\u2019s Day in the Orange Bowl, dreaming of another championship run.<\/p>\n Wear black. Bring the noise!#WreckEm<\/a> | #CapitalOneOrangeBowl<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/TkO6EUvvCC<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Texas Tech Football (@TexasTechFB) December 29, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Nobody understands better than McGuire what it took for Texas Tech to get this far. The money,\u00a0and Tech\u2019s willingness to acknowledge it, carried outsized expectations, privately and publicly. And McGuire was the one charged with building the staff, directing the dollars, signing off on the roster and leading the team, all while managing the egos and aspirations inside and outside the locker room.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s his greatest strength \u2014 he makes teams,\u201d said Cody Campbell, the university board chair and megabooster who led Tech\u2019s donor-funded boon. \u201cHe\u2019s made to bring people together and lead them, get them to all pull the rope the same direction. He\u2019s the perfect guy for this place.\u201d<\/p>\n McGuire addressed it straight on, starting in preseason camp. He had daily messages for the team pulled from \u201cThe Mindset of a Champion,\u201d an audiobook by sports psychologist David Cook.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were going to run to the pressure,\u201d McGuire said. \u201cNot run from it.\u201d<\/p>\n He put together a slide he\u2019s referenced all season, with messages such as \u201cMental toughness is a choice!\u201d and \u201cNever allow anxiety to replace what you know is true.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe all listen to the pressure. You can\u2019t ignore it. But it\u2019s about how you deal with it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n McGuire has always been one to bet on himself, the type who believes doubt kills more dreams than failure. That positivity can be infectious.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone loves Joey. When you talk to him, you\u2019re the most important thing in the world,\u201d said Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt. \u201cHe just leaves you wanting more of whatever it is he\u2019s got.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s why Hocutt hired him. McGuire, 54, came up through the high school coaching ranks, equivalent to knighthood in Texas. In 14 seasons as the head coach at Cedar Hill High, just southwest of Dallas, McGuire won a trio of state championships and also finished runner-up. The lifelong Texan joined the Baylor staff in 2017 as an assistant under Matt Rhule.<\/p>\n In October 2021, Texas Tech fired head coach Matt Wells eight games into his third season. McGuire had never even been a college coordinator, and Tech was in the market for someone with head coaching experience. It didn\u2019t deter McGuire \u2014 and a small army of advocates \u2014 from reaching out to the search committee.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just kept getting calls from random people telling us we had to talk to Joey McGuire,\u201d said Campbell. \u201cHis relentlessness is honestly what impressed me.\u201d<\/p>\n Hocutt and the search committee finally agreed to meet with McGuire, partly to stem the surge of calls. McGuire won them over instead. He was hired on Nov. 8, 2021.<\/p>\n Just months into the name, image and likeness era that allowed college athletes to be compensated, there were a number of deep-pocketed Tech donors ready to invest heavily in athletics<\/a>, most of whom had made a fortune in the local oil and gas industry. But that support was desperate for a unifying voice.<\/p>\n McGuire\u2019s charisma picked the lock, activating those stakeholders and wrapping arms around a fan base still fissured over the 2009 departure of former coach Mike Leach. A year after McGuire was hired, Texas Tech broke ground on a $242 million football facility and stadium project, and The Matador Club, operated by Campbell and John Sellers, became one of the preeminent NIL collectives.<\/p>\n McGuire stripped away the traditional barriers to alignment. Every offseason, the Texas Tech football staff goes on an offsite coaches retreat \u2014 Cabo one year, Vegas another. A handful of top donors are invited, sitting in on strategy meetings and deepening connections.<\/p>\n \u201cJoey understands that\u2019s part of the job these days, where I think some who have been in coaching a long time have a hard time adjusting,\u201d said Campbell. \u201cYour boosters are part of the team \u2014 you have to coach them up and lead them, just like your players.\u201d<\/p>\n Tech went a combined 23-16 over McGuire\u2019s first three seasons \u2014 promising, yet not up to expectations. However, the Red Raiders entered 2025 with an encouraging staff in place, including first-year coordinators Mack Leftwich (offense) and Shiel Wood (defense), and the finances to add 21 incoming transfers, shelling out top dollar for one of the top-rated portal hauls.<\/p>\n Externally, the heat was on Tech to win and justify the $25 million splurge. Internally, a team with fresh faces and big, pricey personalities had to establish the winning culture that could meet those demands. The program\u2019s brain trust made a concerted effort to identify the right mix of players and personas<\/a>, but it still needed a coach to motivate and navigate through adversity.<\/p>\n One of McGuire\u2019s first moves was to put newcomers like defensive tackle Lee Hunter and safety Cole Wisniewski in his group text with team leaders.<\/p>\n \u201cI could always take them out, but I wanted them to feel like they had a voice on this team from the beginning,\u201d said McGuire.<\/p>\n He balanced it by empowering certain returning players, like Morton, to take ownership of integrating the newcomers, banking on the equity he\u2019d built over multiple seasons. One of the misconceptions about Tech this season is that it was all one-year hired guns. The top-end additions got the team over the hump, but of the 22 players that earned all-conference honors in 2025, 13 were returning players.<\/p>\n Morton, a fifth-year senior, has a special bond with McGuire and Tech. He was born in Lubbock, the son of James Morton, another legendary Texas high school coach. Despite being recruited to Tech by the previous coaching staff as the highest-rated quarterback recruit in program history, he elected to stay on under McGuire, starting 35 games and counting over the past four years.<\/p>\n \u201cHis first team meeting, I called my dad after and told him that he and coach McGuire are, like, the exact same,\u201d said Morton. \u201cThe way he connects with all 100-something guys on the team, it\u2019s really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n Still a high school coach at heart, McGuire cultivated that persona at the college level, with the stones to acknowledge the money the program has invested, to run to the pressure, and to publicly leave an open spot in the trophy room for this year\u2019s Big 12 championship hardware. It doesn\u2019t waver, either, like when Tech finished 8-5 last season. Or lost at Arizona State in October with Morton sidelined due to injury.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s always the same guy with the same energy,\u201d said All-American linebacker Jacob Rodriguez. \u201cThat\u2019s nice to be around. It\u2019s not fourth-and-one every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n The Red Raiders rebounded from that loss to ASU with six straight wins, all by at least three touchdowns, including two over a top-12 BYU. An explosive offense that averaged 42.5 points per game, second most in college football, paired perfectly with a stingy, top-three defense.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never seen anyone relate to and love their players the way Joey does,\u201d said Hocutt. \u201cEverybody wants to talk about the money, but you\u2019ve seen other programs try to do the same thing and it\u2019s not successful. Joey deserves so much credit.\u201d<\/p>\n Think you’re gonna like this one. <\/p>\n \ud83c\udfa5 Episode 8 of “The Brand” premieres tomorrow.#WreckEm<\/a> | @WarrenCAT<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/RHpf692DlJ<\/a><\/p>\n