LUBBOCK – The first voice heard by most early arrivals at the Texas Tech football training facility is Joey McGuire’s.

It is 6:22 a.m. and the first-year college head coach is dressed for “Fast Friday”. He holds court, and one of his many cups of morning coffee, as players filter in with sleep in their eyes. Even the sun remains asleep. McGuire arrived at 5:30, which is about 15 minutes later than normal, he says.

My assignment was to shadow the former Cedar Hill head man as he and the Red Raiders prepared for a Week 9 clash against Baylor. One thing quickly became apparent – I’d get my steps in over the 36 hours leading up to kickoff. 

“I don’t sit down much,” McGuire said with a sly grin. “Keep up.” 

After an exchange of greetings, it is off to the weight room for the “Neuro Charge” - a fast-paced zip through a few weightlifting drills to awaken the body. Nas’ “Got Yourself a Gun” plays loudly on the speaker system as strength and conditioning coaches add to the noise with booming voices of encouragement.

Then, everyone on the roster runs to the indoor facility for the main event of the day – Fast Friday. The concept is a super-charged version of a walkthrough that was made famous by Chip Kelly at Oregon. The team works on special teams first, followed by the offense and defense splitting the field and working against scout teams. Thursday is the true walk through. Texas Tech refers to it as no-sweat Thursday. McGuire says the weekly routine is like what Baylor used in the 2019 season. Tuesday and Wednesday are old-school, physical football practices in full pads. Thursday is a break for the body. Friday is to warm that body back up. Saturday is for winning. 

“There are over 30 hours before you hit again, so the players absolutely love it,” McGuire said about the break from physicality on Thursday and Friday. “The Dallas Cowboys talked to us about their recovery time and what they do, so our Thursdays are different than they were at Baylor and during my time at Cedar Hill. I used to believe that every practice required hitting. It can be an adjustment to be less physical. Phil Snow hated it at first until Matt Rhule illustrated to him that we were actually getting more work in this way.” 

Fast Friday feels like practice until the end. A jump ball competition that resembles the opening tip of a basketball game is held at the end of every Fast Friday and the team gets hyped up as the lights dim. The Oct. 27 version pitted a pair of off-field assistants against each other. Since it was close to Halloween, one arrived with a mask on. The other in an “Average Joes” uniform from the movie “Dodgeball”. 

Dave Aranda brought the game to Baylor from LSU where McGuire was an assistant. The contestants are announced on speaker, lights are used, and the players go crazy. The scene is fresh out of an independent wrestling circuit, or something aired on The Ocho. The Average Joe won, just like in the movie. 

McGuire himself went up against current Baylor quarterback coach Shawn Bell during his tenure in Waco. McGuire, who enjoys turning things to 11, even went to Baylor basketball coach Scott Drew and got tearaway pants to pull off like he was checking into a game. His walk-out song was “Southside Da Realist” by Big Tuck, a Dallas anthem. Bell won and tore his ACL in the process. 

The sun is rising as we head back to his office at 8:18 a.m. on Friday. McGuire sits at his desk and searches for clips from Netflix’s recently released documentary on the Redeem Team. He wants to show his guys later that night at the team hotel. McGuire loves sports. He thrives on competition. Hs office is a shrine to family and coaching. Pictures of his family and former players litter the space. His THSCA Hall of Honor plaque sits on a side table next to a couch. The Player-Coaches Oath and Texas Tech’s seven-step "Plan to Win" sign hangs on the wall, which includes things like "Dominate up-front," "Attack the middle 8," and "Win the turnover battle." 

9 a.m. – 33.5 hours until kickoff 

The first staff meeting of the day takes place at 9 a.m. on Friday morning and it is about recruiting. Texas Tech is set to host around 60 prospects for the Baylor game. Jones AT&T Stadium was sold out for weeks and Patrick Mahomes is returning to be inducted into the Texas Tech Hall of Fame and into the Ring of Honor. Director of Player Personnel James Blanchard, the first member of McGuire’s staff, leads the meeting by going through the prospect list. 

Ten commitments, including quarterback Jake Strong and edge rusher Isaiah Crawford, are to be in attendance. The main focus of the meeting is to identify the most important 2024 prospects expected in town. That group included prospects such as wide receiver Micah Hudson, running back Kedren Young, and do-everything athlete Terry Bussey.  

“It is that time of year that everyone is going to come for our guys,” McGuire reminds his staff. 

The staff then goes over rotations and how to work in a few players returning from injury such as Miles Price. The staff consensus is to keep Xavier White on punt return so that all of Price’s snaps are on offense. Assistant Director of Operations Harrison Hanna then takes the stage to go through a report on the game’s officials. He shows the staff multiple charts that starts with a picture of each official and their specific role and works through their 2021 statistics as a crew, how many of each call they’ve made over the past two seasons, and how that crew has called previous games for Texas Tech and Baylor. This crew worked Texas Tech vs. Texas in Week 4 and Baylor vs. Oklahoma State in Week 5. 

11 a.m. – 31.5 hours until kickoff 

McGuire meets with ESPN and local television crews for interviews leading into the game. 

12:30 p.m. – 30 hours until kickoff

A few donors and old friends who are in town for the game stop by McGuire’s office. He shouts encouragements and a few jokes at players and coaches as they walk by his office on the way out of the facility for lunch or class. A table stocked full of snacks sits just outside of McGuire’s office door. 

“We run on hot Cheetos and honeybuns around here,” he jokes.

2 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. – 27 hours until kickoff 

A special teams meeting is held at 2 p.m. Team meetings are held from 2:30 to 3:30 with the offense and defense split. The coaches go over last-minute details such as substitutions, new packages, and final observations about Baylor. Most of the heavy lifting is done during the week so that Friday and Saturday can be about preparing to play loose and fast. After the meetings, players and coaches load up on charter buses for a quick one-mile ride to the team hotel. They collect their keys and get some down time in their rooms until dinner at 6 p.m. McGuire steals a nap. 

6 p.m. – 24.5 hours until kickoff 

McGuire brought a lot of stuff with him from Baylor, including a practice schedule and at least a dozen staffers. He also brought one of his other favorite things – the pasta bar. Fill a bowl with protein such as seafood or chicken or ground sausage and then with vegetables such as peppers, onions, and mushrooms, and then hand that bowl to a chef who adds it to a skillet with either penne or bowtie pasta before he tops it with either marinara or alfredo. Wait five minutes and a fresh, hot bowl of pasta is ready. McGuire, who admits to being superstitious, eats the same thing every time – bowtie pasta with bell peppers, chicken, pepper flakes, garlic, and alfredo sauce. Texas Tech was 3-0 at home to start McGuire’s tenure.  

6:45 p.m. – 23 hours until kickoff 

The team loads up on buses and heads to the movies. The team watches a horror movie called “Prey for the Devil”, which was chosen by team captain Tony Bradford. McGuire joked that some players chose a different movie to avoid nightmares. He himself prefers the action flicks and says that “Black Adam” and “The Woman King” were the best movies they’ve watched so far this season.

8:45 p.m. – 21 hours until kickoff 

The team returns to the hotel after the movie for a final team meeting. The gathering includes the clip from the “Redeem Team” where Coach K leaves a note in Kobe Bryant’s locker about Manu Ginobili being the best shooting guard in the world. Carmelo Anthony says, “I watched him go from Kobe Bryant to the Black Mamba” while snapping his fingers. That is what McGuire wants his team to understand. 

“We’re a loose group, but when it is time to turn it on, we know how to flip that switch,” he said. 

He also shows his team a highlight package from previous weeks. After the meeting, Texas Tech funnels back into the main conference room for one last meal before bed. The menu includes quesadillas and chicken wings, as well as an ice cream sundae bar. 

10:30 p.m. – 20 hours until kickoff 

Lights out. 

Saturday - Gameday 

9 a.m. – 9.5 hours until kickoff 

Texas Tech holds a rolling breakfast for gamedays that kickoff at night or in the afternoon. Players and coaches are free to come eat breakfast anytime between 8:30 and 10:30. McGuire enters the main conference room of the team hotel for breakfast – mostly coffee – at 9 a.m. He sits there with a cup of joe and his cell phone for 30 minutes as he takes turns talking to different recruits. He texts them to call him on his phone, or other coaches hand McGuire the phone to chat with a high-priority recruit. 

“Hey there stud, do you know who y’all play in the first round of the playoffs yet?” McGuire asks nearly every recruit. He hasn’t fallen far from his high school roots. He’ll tell anybody who will listen that he’s a high school coach coaching college football. Most of the conversation during the 30 minutes spent recruiting on Saturday morning is dedicated to the night before. Duncanville beating up on DeSoto. A big game from a running back in East Texas. That Denton Guyer will be hard to beat in the 6A Division II playoffs. 

“I miss the high school playoffs,” McGuire admits. “There isn’t anything better in football. I wouldn’t even play home games in the first round because I always wanted our kids at Cedar Hill to feel the atmosphere of a playoff game.” 

10:30 a.m. – 8 hours until kickoff 

The team loads up on the buses and heads to the football training facility to do a gameday walkthrough and break up the amount of time remaining until kickoff. Coaches and media are the only people on the planet who love early morning kickoffs, though, McGuire concedes he doesn’t mind late kicks at home because of the atmosphere inside the stadium. The amount of time to kill before the game is a challenge for every staff in the country. Texas Tech attempts to keep the Red Raiders busy without tiring them out. A delicate balance.

On the bus ride over to the facility, McGuire recalls a time at Baylor when the Bears’ bus was flashed by a bunch of sorority girls from West Virginia back in 2020. No such thing happened in Lubbock. 

The offense heads into the indoor facility to go through the opening game script and to work on any specialty plays while the defense heads to the team meeting room. The defense emerges around 30 minutes later to walk through personnel groups and different checks. McGuire pulls the team together at 11:40 for a quick message before heading back to the hotel for sandwiches and downtime. 

“Don’t do anything over the next few hours that’ll keep you from playing your best football tonight,” he warns the team. The group then breaks out with a lout “PFT” which stands for “Protect the Family” a saying that dates to McGuire’s time at Cedar Hill. 

“Other schools were always after our guys at Cedar Hill,” McGuire said. “We just wanted to protect our guys, almost like a mafia thing. If you lived in Cedar Hill, you were going to Cedar Hill.” 

McGuire picks up some trash on the way back to the bus, something he also did at the hotel on a few occasions. 

2:30 p.m. – 4 hours until kickoff 

McGuire stands in the hallway of the team hotel 30 minutes before everyone else is to report downstairs. He’s watching TCU – the team he plays the next weekend – outlast a West Virginia squad that the Red Raiders handled the week before. The Horned Frogs won by 10 in a dogfight. 

“The Big 12 is tough, man," he said. "There aren’t any easy weeks and it’ll only get tougher with the new four.” 

Fans walk by and ask McGuire for a picture or an autograph or even for just a minute or two of conversation. He obliges. McGuire is a people person, even on gamedays. Coaches, just like players, can get tight and stressed in the hours leading up to a game. Not McGuire. He sips on a Diet Coke, chats with any passerby, and continues to watch Big 12 football as if he gets to go sit in the press box once he arrives at AT&T Jones Stadium. 

3 p.m. – 3.5 hours until kickoff 

The coaching staff heads to the second floor of the team hotel for quick staff meeting in the Tumbleweed Room. “Everyone good?” he asks to start the meeting before relaying a few last-second messages about the game plan. “Attack the DBs, let’s make them tackle,” he says. “Breathe confidence into your guys,” he adds. The meeting only lasts about 10 minutes before the group breaks out to walk back downstairs. 

3:45 p.m. – 3 hours until kickoff 

Meek Mill’s “Dreams and Nightmares” blares in one of the team rooms at the hotel as the Pump Jack Posse – better known as Texas Tech’s special teams units – are called to the floor by assistant coach Kenny Perry. The desired unit huddles in the middle of the room while the rest of the roster cheers. Perry calls out different situations such as a substitution package and a new player arrives into the huddle to a round of applause. 

After each special teams unit is called and accounted for, the offense heads to the parking lot for one final walkthrough. The defense stays inside to do the same. 

4 p.m. – 2.5 hours until kickoff 

One final meal. McGuire speaks to the team for a few minutes before giving way to the team chaplain. The lesson is Psalms 145 and the idea of legacy built on individual decisions over a long period of time. “How are we going to be remembered?” he asks the team. “Legacies are written in the moments – play after play, rep after rep.” 

One table in the dining room sits assistant coaches such as Zach Kittley, Josh Cochrane, and Emmett Jones. Mahomes is in town for the first time since his last game at Texas Tech, and the three coaches share memories from that time in college football history. Kittley was a GA and quarterbacks coach at Texas Tech during that time. Jones was the outside receiver’s coach. Cochrane played at Texas. 

The details in which football coaches remember games from years ago never ceases to amaze. Like golfers recalling shots from rounds played decades earlier, the three talk about individual play calls, conversations on headsets, and locker room banter from five years ago as if these things happened the day before. 

“When they’re life-changing moments, you tend to remember them for the rest of your life,” Kittley said. 

4:15 p.m. – 2 hours until kickoff 

The group loads the bus for the final trip away from the team hotel. McGuire quickly changes into a grey blazer, jeans, and a black cowboy hat before loading the bus. For the first time in 36 hours, McGuire puts in his AirPods and takes a few moments to himself as everyone rides the one-mile trip to campus. There, everyone unloads and then walks a short distance through a throng of Red Raider faithful to the locker room. 

5 p.m. – 1.5 hours until kickoff 

The main attraction on the field before the game is Mahomes, who is there with an NFL Live camera crew filming his every moment for the eventual documentary about his career. Every player, coach, and donor on the field before the game makes his way over to the future Hall of Famer for a handshake and, hopefully, a picture. 

"He’s the ambassador for Texas Tech because he’s proof that you can make it to the mountaintop from here," McGuire said of Mahomes. "He is the hottest thing going in everything that he does, so it is big for us to get him back here around the players and the recruits." 

McGuire and Baylor assistant David Wetzel, who helped connect Rhule and McGuire back in 2017, chat on the field for a few minutes as both teams stretch. The familiarity between the two staffs is noticeable throughout the warmups because the coaching staffs intermingled often as game time approached. Texas Tech has around a dozen former Baylor assistants on staff. 

6 p.m. – 40 minutes until kickoff 

The coaches huddle in the tunnel just outside the Red Raiders locker room for a pregame prayer. Mahomes is there, and he takes a knee with the coaching staff. Afterwards, the coaches explode with emotion. They shake hands, give hugs, and yell encouragement at each other. 

“This is much more hype than it was when I played,” Mahomes jokes as he enters the locker room to give the current players some love. 

6:20 p.m. – 20 minutes until kickoff 

McGuire, now in his sideline gear, paces the locker room before providing a pregame speech. Dustin Womble, who made a $20 million lead gift for a new football training facility and is the largest lifetime individual donor to the athletic department, leans up against a wall in the locker room as he takes in the moment. 

“I try to find a fault in all the coaches after they’re here for a bit, and the only thing with (Joey) is his gameday attire,” he jokes. “Too much Matt Rhule for my liking.”

6:30 p.m. – 10 minutes until kickoff 

The team gathers in the tunnel to run out onto the field. A sold out Jones AT&T Stadium, and the Baylor Bears, greet the Red Raiders. 

I love game day,” McGuire said. “The big things for me are the moments and the journey to the game. Being around the players and in the staff meetings and watching some football in the lobby with the guys as we prepare for our game. Coaches never leave the locker room. We go from players to coaches because it is such a special place.” 

 

 

6:40 p.m. – kickoff