Joey McGuire shares key to Texas Tech’s recruiting success

Texas Tech football coach Joey McGuire has seen an uptick in his recruiting success as of late, and he can thank his new philosophy for that.

MGuire revealed his process to On3’s JD PicKell on a recent episoed of the ‘Hard Count,’ noting that there have been some learning curves on his staff while testing his new recruiting operation.

“We run it more like an NFL model, meaning we have a personnel department that really controls everything we can do,” McGuire told PicKell. “Traditionally, you’re going to have a recruiting department, and they’re going to give you guys to watch. That goes to the position coach, he watches them, then it goes to the coordinators … the process could take two weeks. It just depends on who is driving that offer.

“With us, our personnel department comes to me and says, ‘Okay coach, this is who we’ve watched, here are their measurables, everything we can verify with them. This is who we want to recruit.'”

At first, McGuire’s coordinators were worried about not getting to watch extended film on the players that they had been bringing in. That’s not the case, but the Red Raiders’ head coach isn’t keen on waiting for a second or third opinion. Instead, he’d rather his staff take his word on it and figure the rest out once that athlete in on campus.

Breaking down the process, he pointed out that he didn’t want this way of recruiting to come between him and his staff.

“It’s basically, here’s who we’re going to recruit instead of having to process all this field, get the team ready [for gameday] and coach the team we have now. It streamlines the process, but you have to have some guys that you totally trust. Luckily we do, and it keeps us ahead.

“We’re developing relationships way before guys are getting offers. Usually, we are always the first or second offer a kid gets.”

Texas Tech ranks No. 27 overall in the 2023 On3 Recruiting Rankings and is already off to a hot start in 2024 with the No. 19-ranked class as of this report. If what McGuire says is true — that ranking should only improve as more recruits make their college decision.

Their 2023 rating sees them jump from the eighth-best recruiting class in the Big 12 to No. 4. Their early 2024 class currently ranks No. 1 in the conference, which features four four-star recruits.