The first scrimmage was Saturday and below we have the non-transcript from the media scrum with head coach Joey McGuire.

• Physical scrimmage, came out healthy. First part of the scrimmage, the offense was explosive, Jordan Brown had big day with Behren Morton. Red zone period, defense won. Had 4 pre-snap penalties, rather than happen now than in the game and lots of stuff to teach off of. Brightest part of the day is that Bryce Ramirez went full tilt today, played great and a testament to our training staff and a kid that has a work ethic like no one I’ve been around. That was the highlight for me because he’s a joy and a light.
• Kicking game, Gino hit a 52-yarder with plenty of distance. He’s elite, we expect him to be our field goal kicker. Reese is putting it 5 and 8 yards deep, consistently in the end zone and a good combination of what we’ve needed, Reese has done a good job on field goals. Have the best punter in the nation, Brook has grown a lot from last year from this year.
• Miles Price will be primary punt returner with Jordan, and Jordan and Drae McCray are on kickoff. Jordan is 190 pounds, was maybe 178 last year, had put on good muscle and playing physical.
• Steve Linton will be back on Tuesday, Coy Eakin is out until Tarleton or West Virginia, he had a slight collar bone crack, where the other guys had a break. Malik Dunlap with ankle will be back Tuesday. Nehemiah Martinez will play against Wyoming, feels good, no break ,just getting his vision out of one eye back. There was rumors that it was orbital fracture and that’s not the case. Just football, just guys excited and irritated with each other. Feel good about playing against Wyoming. Nehemiah is so good and smart. He will be released to play game week.
• Jordan Brown is at outside with Loic Fouonji, they are alternating. You’ll see, he caught some deep balls and the safety had a bullseye and he ran out of bounds, D.J. Crest, T.J. West, Kelby Valsin, young guys are good. We are really deep and good. Xavier White is really good and he steps in. What we do with Miles, will use him differently to get him the ball. Kittley has some tricks
• Brady Boyd is full back, he can play every position at receiver. Really intelligent. He didn’t redshirt, he and I have talked about this. There’s no way he should have played as a freshman, we did this in 2019, we redshirted Petrie, we used him certain games he was needed and could be a possibility with Boyd. Do we have enough to go into a game and pick the games to go into. We don’t want a kid to just play 4 years when he should have redshirted.
• Jalon Peoples took every snap at corner, had a good day. Playing a lot more corner, we want to work him at both because some freshman not play 12 games, and have different guys play 4 games and need guys like Jalon be able to do both. Had a 2 minute period yesterday and got the defense off the field and proud of they’ve played.
• Today was a huge step for the offensive line, didn’t know what to do with the time, last year had to throw the check-down. A group that is night and day and am really excited, about to get another guy back, Ty Buchanan, he’ll be back Tuesday and adds more depth to the offensive line. Fun to watch today. then the d-line was upset and the defensive line got sacks in the red zone.
• Really proud of Quincy Ledet, Duda Banks, Blake Burris has made a huge jump, had a great camp. Trevon McAlpin, was slow early coming off of injury and he got a lot of reps. From last year to this year, huge change, now we feel like we have 4 to 6 to take legitimate snaps.
• Playing together more, have a veteran secondary and a new star in C.J. Baskerville, made a huge play on the goal line. Just communication, doing a good job, the 1’s made good tackles, biggest thing is communication and last year the 5th guy wasn’t on the same page and they are getting there and have two new voices, having Tyler Owens and C.J. together.
• There will be some teams in the top 25 that we beat, if they are there, then we should be. We were in the coaches, but I don’t know if I heard one thing about it team-wise. The players are focused on us and Wyoming. It is great for us and the double-t, if we are in there, then that’s great and we’ll fight our butts off to keep climbing.

The recruiting department announced some changes whereby James Blanchard is now the General Manager of the program, which Brian Nance stepping up in Blanchard’s old role of Director of Player Personnel, and Sean Kenney is now the Director of Scouting. I knew that both Blanchard and Nance followed Joey McGuire to Texas Tech, but Kenney arrived from Alabama where he spent 6 years. Love seeing everyone move up.

In other promotions, Eric Gerald was promoted to Director of Football Video, which includes breaking down practice video and opponents. Gerald has been with the program for 6 years and you love to see people succeed.

Wes Kittley has signed a 7 year contract with Texas Tech for $3.8 total (that seems like a steal).

Videos. The first one is the first episode of season 2 of The Brand, then highlights from the first scrimmage, and finally quarterback Tyler Shough mic’d up.