McGuire, QBs discuss spring game preparation, ongoing competition
Texas Tech spring football practice has reached its final week and the Red Raiders are steadily preparing for the culmination of it all: the spring game. Following Tech’s Tuesday session, head coach Joey McGuire, along with quarterbacks Tyler Shough and Behren Morton spoke to the media. Here are the takeaways:
Joey McGuire
On potentially adding pieces through the transfer portal:
“Man, even with the portal not opening, I look at my roster every single day. Literally, the first thing I do whenever I come in, I grab a cup of coffee and I look at my spreadsheet. Really, trying to do, as far as even the depth chart of trying to create competition, I think a lot of it is going to depend on Saturday. I feel good man, I feel like if it’s one of those deals, our starting 11 has really good depth, our receivers have good depth, good depth at running back. Defense for sure, our starting 11 and we have some good depth in places, and we’re going to play some really young guys. We’ll sit down after Saturday and see. It’s gonna definitely be, if it is anything and I can’t think off the top of my head when I say this, it’s going to be a need. There’s not going to be anybody that pops up that we’re like ‘Oh my gosh, this guy,’. Because we have some as coach (Jerome) Tang said, I saw him after he was playing, we got some dudes. And to win games, you got to have some dudes and we got dudes.”
On format of the spring game:
“So the first half will be a running clock, minus the last two minutes we’ll play it like a regular game. And then the plan in the third quarter is to go to “redzone lockout.” So we’ll put the ball to the 20 and go to 18 (points). That’s what we do, we just got through doing it, it’s really competitive. That’d be like the third quarter. And then that fourth quarter, get a lot of the young guys and have a running clock, get the threes and fours in. That’s right there we’ll send some of the old guys to a stretch and get rehab and let the young guys really get after each other.”
On the QB competition and timeline to officially name starter:
“It’s crazy, I think it’s more heated than last year, because of two things. One, Tyler had such a great finish to the year. He has so much confidence and he feels great. He’s like 230 (pounds), 232. And then last year in the spring, I don’t know if Behren truly believed, because he hadn’t done it for a full game or multiple games, that he was ready. He walked in today to our strength staff and patted Lance (Barilow) on the butt and said ‘217 big boy’. So he’s 217 pounds right now , he was like 203 in the bowl game and he has a lot of swagger. He believes that he could be the guy, so I couldn’t ask for anything more when it comes out of that room… . We’ll probably release that in June. Might do it right after the game. Our exit meetings are Monday and Tuesday and so we want to be able to sit down with those guys. Unless I told them going into the game, I don’t want anybody to know until we get to sit down with them but I feel good about it.”
On the competition between him and Morton:
“We’ve all been in this offense. So that standard is, you know, even higher for everybody. So we got a lot of expectations, especially coming in this next year with a lot of guys coming back, people transferring in. So the standard’s not just the Texas Bowl, we want to win the Big 12 Championship. We bring it out to practice and walkthroughs, every single day. It’s been a lot of fun competing and it’s being thrown out in the field.”
On what this last season of college football means to him:
“I think it’s just a closing of what I can really put everything together and show it on tape. I know what I’m capable of, I think we’re due for a really good season. And I know personally, I’m doing everything I can to make that happen. Things happen that really sometimes were out of my control, but it’s been really just a mental lesson for me to just understand how to deal with that adversity and take it into the next chapter.”
On competing for the starting job against Shough:
“Coming from playing a little bit last year and the knowledge of the game, going into spring we knew it was going to be a great competition. Learning from Tyler is great, he’s an awesome role model that I can for sure idolize on and off the field, he does some great things. Just day by day it’s just an everyday competition. You come in and the thing you did last practice you know you’re going to correct that. It’s just kind of something we bounce back and forth with every single day and it’s really fun to compete with him.”
On sticking around in Lubbock with the prevalence of the transfer portal in college sports:
“Growing up in Lubbock, you know, this is home for me. And that’s pretty much enough said. I’m a Lubbock boy, I watched Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree throwing those touchdowns and all that. So, just to be here in this opportunity, to have the kind of leadership I have on this team, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
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