Joey McGuire: Texas Tech players ‘truly believe’ they can win Big 12 in 2023

It has been nearly three decades since Texas Tech has won a conference championship. But head coach Joey McGuire said there is belief within the Red Raiders program that drought could end this year.

McGuire recently hopped on The Hard Count with JD PicKell and talked with PicKell about how the team is feeling about its chances in the Big 12 in 2023.

“If you’re in this building right now and you ask a player — and I’m sure you can say this about everywhere — but you look at our guys in the eye and you’ll feel that they truly believe that they can win the Big 12,” McGuire said. “It’s one of those deals of one reason is because we have so much experience back. Like I said, we got our fourth football school today, if you’re down there on the offense side of the ball, you’re gonna be like, these dudes are ready to go play a game right now. Just the speed and the grasp that they have of the offense. It’s a lot of fun to be in West Texas right now and we’ve got some fans that are pretty fired up.”

The last Texas Tech conference championship was in 1994 when the Red Raiders were in the Southwest Conference and the Big 12 was still one more year away from its first season.

The 1994 Red Raiders — coached by Spike Dykes, the father of current TCU coach Sonny Dykes — finished the season 6-6 but went 4-3 in the conference. Texas A&M finished the season 7-0 in conference play but was not eligible for the SWC championship. Texas Tech tied with five other teams at 4-3 for the regular season title. The Red Raiders played in the 1995 Cotton Bowl and lost to USC.

The program’s last outright conference title came in 1955 when Texas Tech won the Border Conference. The conference consisted of Arizona, Arizona State, Hardin–Simmons, New Mexico A&M (now New Mexico State), Texas Western (now UTEP) and West Texas State (now West Texas A&M). The Red Raiders went 3-0-1 in conference play and 7-3-1 on the season.

The closest Texas Tech has come to a conference title this century came in 2008. Under Mike Leach, the Red Raiders tied for a share of the Big 12 South Division title with Oklahoma and Texas. However, the Sooners won the tiebreaker and got to participate in the Big 12 Championship Game.