Texas Tech’s current leader of the program and running backs coach DeAndre Smith held a press conference with the media on Thursday and talked about the team's first bowl practice and the approach heading into the Liberty Bowl matchup against Mississippi State.

With Sonny Cumbie accepting the head coaching position at Louisiana Tech, Smith has taken over the day-to-day responsibilities of leading the Red Raider football program. With the plan being for Cumbie to still coach Tech in the bowl game, Smith said he’s been in continuous contact with the Bulldogs new head man.

“Coach Sonny and I talk every night, just to check in with him and make sure I’m relaying the same message to the team,” Smith said. “The staff has done a great job. We’ve all had input on the gameplan, and practice plans together. We’re moving forward, business as usual.”

Coach Smith said he addressed the players today in a team meeting and talked about how they plan to use this time to grow closer as a football team.

“They’re a competitive group,” Smith noted. “Those guys continue to be competitive; they want to compete, and this has allowed us to become closer together. That’s kind of been the challenge, we want to win the bowl game and we’re going to use this time to grow as a team, but we understand what’s really important is to win the game. They want to do that, and they came out to practice today energetic. It was a good first day.”

Smith noted that being down a few coaches right now, the remaining staff’s focus is primarily on themselves and working on fundamentals with the team. Smith added that bowl practices are a great opportunity to get young players work, treating it like extra spring practices and evaluating guys as they go.

“It’s all about us, we’re just going to focus on fundamentals and do a lot of team stuff together,” Smith said. “You don’t want practice to get stale, so right now we’ll just work on fundamentals, individual, and group stuff. As we go, we’ll add conditioning to practice and then we’ll build up next week when Sonny and Keith (Patterson) come back.”

Smith said the speed and energy was good to see from the team in Thursday’s practice. He was also complimentary of the young coaches on staff and their ability to fill in for the full-time guys and the team not miss a beat.

“Guys were lined up, moving around, it felt like football,” Smith noted. “The energy was good, and it felt like all of our coaches were out there with the speed and tempo guys were moving around with.”

Smith credited this group of Red Raider seniors and said that the talk around the team has been to make this special for them.

“They made the decision to comeback, and we want to go out and win for them,” Smith said. “I told them (seniors), I’m going to lean on you guys and you guys have to be the ones to be up front with the younger guys, so we can make sure this a good experience. Really, at the end of the day, this will be a nice bowl game if we win. It’ll be fun if we win”

Texas Tech is one of two schools in the country to not have a player enter the transfer portal and coach Smith said that speaks to the character of the guys in the locker room, the commitment they have and how they want to finish this thing together.

“We want to play together as long as we possibly can,” Smith noted. “They believe in each other and don’t want to break this team up, so we’re going to enjoy the time that we have, as long as we possibly can.”

Coach Smith said it was great to get the opportunity to stay on board as the running backs coach on Joey McGuire’s staff and noted the continuity that he’ll be able to carry over into next year’s team.

“Coach McGuire has done a great job of putting the staff together and I can be that bridge between the guys,” Smith said. “I feel good that they'll have a familiar face, that will help, and I can communicate with the new staff about certain guys as we move forward. I think it’s a good thing for everybody involved.”

Smith said he’s had conversations with a few coaches on the new staff but hasn’t got the chance to work with them just yet. Smith added that the staff has been on the recruiting trail, but some of the coaches got back in town today and got a chance to see the guys in practice.