Joey McGuire lists Big 12 Championship as 'expectation' for Texas Tech

With talking season reaching its next phase at conference’s respective media days, coaches across the country are feeling good about where their teams are at with the upcoming season fast approaching. That includes Texas Tech’s Joey McGuire as he is very high on what the Red Raiders can be in ’23.

McGuire addressed his team’s potential while in Arlington at Big 12 Media Days last week. After the media picked Texas Tech to finish fourth in the league, he admitted that that made him feel somewhat okay because they haven’t gotten the vote right in a few seasons.

“Well, I don’t want to say y’all are wrong. But, you know, it is,” McGuire said. “If you go back and look, K-State and TCU? I don’t know where they were picked last year. I heard Sonny (Dykes) yesterday talk and maybe he said they were seventh and they had such a great year. The year before that? You had Oklahoma State and Baylor. I think, in 2020, Iowa State played in it and, in 2019, Baylor played in it.”

Texas Tech is coming off an 8-5 year in McGuire’s first run in Lubbock. That included victories in five of their last seven including a 42-25 win over Ole Miss in the Texas Bowl.

Now, considering the state of the Big 12, the Red Raider’s schedule, and the team that he has, McGuire expects big things this fall. If they can manage the projections that will be placed upon them and stay focused, he believes that his program will enter the season with more than a few advantages to work with.

“I do think it’s a wide-open conference,” McGuire said. “For us? We have to stay healthy. I know this is going to be coach-speak but we really do have to handle the expectation that maybe a lot of guys on our roster have not had before. We’ve got to stay humble. But we’ve got a really good opportunity to be a really good football team.

“I’ll tell you our expectation is definitely to (win the Big 12). We’ve just got to build on it every single week,” said McGuire. “We’ve got a really tough schedule. It’s going to be a really fun schedule. We’ve got some tough road games and we’ve got some really good football teams coming into Lubbock. I’m glad that we have the two teams that played in the Big 12 Championship last year at home. That’s going to be a big advantage for us.”

A few other teams in the conference are going to want a word with McGuire based on his prediction. In the Big 12’s one-year shot as a 14-team league, though, he has no issue with dreaming big for his second season as a head coach.