Here’s the entirety of the Big 12 Media Days with head coach Joey McGuire, which I encourage you to watch.

If you can’t watch it, then you can read the entire transcript here. Which isn’t really practical, so I’ll pull some parts from the PDF. One of the best things that McGuire did was to open up the press conference by being grateful where he’s at, then he thanked various people, including Hocutt, the administration, Bowlsby, stated that he was excited about the new commissioner, and then he rattled off all of the academic accomplishments and community service hours spent by the team.

That’s a pretty good way to open a press conference.

When asked about Zach Kittley and the offense:

Where I fell in love with him, we’ve been talking a lot over the last couple years, but in the interview, he said, Coach, I’m going to find our best 11 players, I’m going to get them on the field, and we’re going to score a lot of points. He said, you know, whenever I was at Western Kentucky, it was our best 11. We had four really good receivers. At Texas Tech we have three really good tight ends. So it’s going to look a little bit different.

When asked about if Texas Tech is positioned for success:

Yeah, I think — I said in my opening statement, I think I work for the best AD in the country, and I think the way he approaches things puts us in a really good position. So we’re excited.

Whatever happens, I heard — I listened to everybody’s press conference yesterday, and of course I heard our new commissioner that we’re open for business. I do think that the Big 12 will look different. I think we have a great opportunity to just make our conference even stronger.

I think we’re going to put ourselves with the facilities, with the amount of different degrees and the different things you can study at Texas Tech, we’re going to put ourselves in a really good position to be a part of something special in the Big 12.

When asked how he has so much energy, and it is about the players and there’s no reason not to be excited about coaching:

The players. I really believe that coaching is a calling, and you have an opportunity to change lives. Every single day whenever my feet hit the floor, I make a choice, no matter if sometimes my wife is upset with me that I didn’t pick something up or I didn’t do something at home, of course, but no matter what happens throughout the day, when my feet hit the floor in the morning, I make a choice to be fired up and excited because I get a chance to make our players the best version of theirselves. That’s what we truly believe in. We are a player-centered program. It’s all about them.

I do think the new facilities take a big part in that, also. But that’s what fires me up. I’m a lot like my mama. That’s how she was, and I learned from her.

It’s a choice. We’ve got a choice to get up every morning and be happy and excited and make a difference in people’s lives.

When choosing his first coaching staff, it was about putting the players first.

Well, it had to start really — it didn’t start — this is going to sound crazy. It didn’t start with Xs and Os. I told our staff, and I tell them every day, if you can’t come in here and put the players first, you’re in the wrong place. So it started with guys that truly believed in that philosophy.

Then it went from the scheme and different people that I knew. It was really big to hire Tim DeRuyter. He’s been a head coach. There’s so many times in college, there’s so many times that I go into his office and say, hey, take your defensive coordinator hat off, put your head coaching hat on, make sure I’m going in the right direction. That was huge.

It was huge to get good connections. You asked earlier about Texas high school coaches, to put those guys together.

I wanted to make sure that we brought a bunch of guys in the building that could get along, that cared about each other. Of course it’s my job to build that chemistry on the coaching staff, but we have some really, really good coaches, and I’m really excited about our staff. I think we have as good a staff as anybody in the country.

The quarterback competition is a three-horse race:

That’s a great question. I don’t want to leave out Behren Morton. We have a three-horse race in this competition. I wasn’t worried about somebody leaving and naming a quarterback or anything like that. I wanted them to truly win it, and they all had great springs, but nobody separated theirselves.

I told Coach Kittley, he will never in his career have a room like he has, that we have three guys that can go win football games. We have three guys that all can extend plays with their feet. We have three guys that have exceptional arm talent.

It’s not like he has to call a different offense because he has somebody that’s a pro-style guy back there. They’re competing extremely hard. I’ve told everybody in Lubbock and our fan base, we’re not going to rotate quarterbacks, but you’re going to see packages with possibly all three of them.

I’ll just give you an example. If Donovan Smith doesn’t win the job, I would be crazy not to have a 6’5″ 240-pound quarterback not running quarterback power on the goal line.

So that’s one of the things that we’re really trying to do, what do these guys do well and how they can help us win football games.

And your friend Mac Engel asked a question about if he has a different perspective about recruiting rankings as a college coach versus a high school coach:

Well, that is an incredible question because the one thing about us is we are totally different. I mean, if somebody has a ranking with the most athletic class and the fastest class in the nation, that’s the one we want to be in.

From the standpoint of different rankings, the way I look at it is are they a Texas Tech football player, do they fit in what we want to do. And we truly believe that we’re a developmental program, and we don’t shy away from that, and we don’t think that’s a bad word. We want to take high school kids that have athletic traits that we can develop.

I look at it, it’s great for our fans, but I also tell our fans, too, we’re ahead of a lot of people whenever it comes to guys that haven’t been ranked yet, so just wait because they will be at some point. We don’t stray away from our model, our blueprint.

I learned that from Matt Rhule. I think you saw that in 2019 and 2021. I definitely think you saw that in the NFL Draft this year and in the NFL combine; that when you recruit that way, then you can develop some really, really good football players.

Also wanted to highlight this interview with Dave Campbell’s Texas Football and McGuire.

The football Twitter account has a lot of content, but it should be noted that Myles Price is electric in terms of his personality.

“Has @JoeyMcGuireTTU‘s head grown since being on the DCTF cover?” @calebrogers76 | @Myles_price3 | @TexasTechFB pic.twitter.com/eZq48OgSrZ

— Dave Campbell’s Texas Football — TexasFootball.com (@dctf) July 14, 2022

Myles Price is the songbird of our generation #WreckEm@RedRaiderNation | @Myles_price3 pic.twitter.com/zP37pymVZL

— Mason Horodyski (@MasonHorodyski) July 14, 2022

Tyree Wilson is a literal giant.

📍Bunch of sharp dressed men checking in here at AT&T Stadium #WreckEm | #Big12FB pic.twitter.com/cnsQWoZxsb

— Texas Tech Football (@TexasTechFB) July 14, 2022

Dadrion Taylor-Demerson had the opportunity to throw out the first pitch last night.

What an amazing honor @TexasTechFB pic.twitter.com/8e3prUOSMX

— THE RABBIT (@DadrionT) July 15, 2022

Really fun interview with Caleb Rogers and Myles Price.