Texas Tech’s McGuire pushes back on spending criticism

Published 12:23 am Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Texas Tech head football Coach Joey McGuire talks with the media on on Day 1 of Big 12 Football Media Days in Frisco. (Michel Alfaro/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

SAN ANTONIO — It seems like Texas Tech football coach Joey McGuire is getting a little annoyed at the speculation and anonymous talk that about the amount of spending done in the offseason to improve his program.

While much has been speculated on how much the Red Raiders have spent in the offseason to acquire a top-ranked transfer portal class and some top-rated high school recruits, no one really knows for sure because nothing has been made official and very little has been made public.

The way McGuire sees it, Tech is just operating under the new rules of revenue sharing and NIL (Name Image Likeness) and they have the support to do it.

“Honestly, I kind of laugh. Because I don’t know of any coach who wouldn’t want the support that their university and their boosters put behind Texas Tech,” said McGuire during a press conference at the Texas High School Coaches Association Coaching Convention in San Antonio on Monday. “Some of it, I go, ‘man, that’s kind of hypocritical.’ I’ve been doing this a long time. A high school coach for 23 years, I coached 98 Division I football players. I’ve seen all the good, the bad, the ugly in recruiting. I don’t know what Texas’ payroll was last year or Ohio State’s payroll was last year, but nobody was surprised when they were doing it at that level. All of a sudden, Texas Tech decides that we’re going to be extremely aggressive in the two worlds and do it the right way, that it shouldn’t be done at Texas Tech.”

Because Tech isn’t a blue blood program like Texas or Ohio State and the fact that they haven’t won a whole lot over the years, there are more skeptics because the Red Raiders want to join the party.

McGuire is well aware that his team is going to have a huge target on its back this fall.



With the team they’ve assembled and the expectations that have come with it, it’s pretty much Big 12 title game or bust this year.

“I understand that there are going to be a lot of people excited to play us to prove us wrong, to say, hey look, you went out and spent all this money and this is what your team looks like,” McGuire said. “I know our guys are going to focus on us. We talk about it all the time, we’ve got to control what we can control. There are a lot of expectations. I think expectations are great. I would rather be in that position than be in the position where, man, if everything goes right and the ball bounces our way, maybe we can become bowl eligible. I’d rather be on the other side of like, hey we expect you guys to play for a Big 12 championship. I know that’s what our fan base expects. I know that’s what our administration expects. I know everybody in that building expects that. We’ve got to go out and really just focus on us. We don’t really talk about a lot of other people. We know that doesn’t do us any good to get ready to play on Saturday.”

McGuire also credited the planning that began as long as two years ago by Tech Director of Athletics Kirby Hocutt and top booster and the chairman of the Tech board of regents Cody Campbell about the way they were going to handle revenue sharing.

“We’ve been working on this model for a good while,” he said. “How we’re going to share, the salary cap, how that looks like, what percentage of that goes to your left tackle, what percentage of that goes to your quarterback, on down the line. That last piece comes down to relationships. We want to be around kids that love football, that want to be developed, and then there’s real money. But that’s the last thing we talk about when they come in.”

He also said that no matter what anybody says or speculates, they are going to do it by the rules.

“There’s all this stuff of, I don’t know how they’re going over the salary cap. You’re not in my building, you don’t know what’s going on,” McGuire said. “You don’t have to like the way we cook and you can do it a totally different way. We’ll find out who’s right at the end of the day, and hopefully we are.”

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