Texas Tech Football: Pre-Spring Presser

I am blessing your Monday morning with a non-transcript of Joey McGuire as spring practices are set to start. This was a tough one for me because it was so long and had to do it in multiple parts because the weekend was so busy for me so this one was a litle sloppy on my end of things.

Not going through spring practices:

Will Hammond – released to throw, just linear running.
Quinten Joyner – release date June 1st.
Kai Powell – WR out for spring, had ACL late in the season.
Leyton Stone – get some spring, just hamstring.
Jack Esparza – Back in June, foot injury from the Big 12 Championship week.
Bryce Pollock & Terrian Grant – shoulder cleanup.
Miquel Dingle – physical freak, more than an ACL, he looks good.
Braylan McDonald – Knee.
Austin Romaine – Protecting wrist. Has a cast on and will be out in the summer.
Wesley Smith – Shoulder.
Jayden Cofield – Achilles.
Dylan Singleton – Coming off of rehab.
In last football school. Will be in helmets and spiders before spring break and full pads after spring break on 3/24.

Remainder of presser:

Caleb Rogers had a great power point and Jacob Rodriguez talked about the combine and interviews. Jalen Petire had a zoom meeting with the safeties. Cam Ward had a zoom meeting with the quarterbacks and Terrell Bernard will have a zoom meeting with the linebackers next week.
The offensive line, what hindered us was pre-snap penalties and need to grow, have 3 starters coming back, and are in key positions, with Sheridan and Howard and Ponton. The other group, 2 starters coming back, but serious competition, who will be the field safety. Peyton Morgan, Oliver Miles, or keep BJ Jordan there and start Malik Esquerra there. Have such a mix of having an old team, have 6 starters coming back on offense & defense that were ours and then guys who started games. Took a huge step in the OL last year.
Huge believer in the winter portal, don’t believe in anything past that. Don’t want to be part of a later portal. I want to have the team here, maybe just 3 or 4 guys who are not on campus. Spring is the purest form of football, the biggest thing trying to do is fundamental football. Be elite. See the character of the team. How physical we will be. How the units come together. We go every other day so we can be more physical and get ready and figure out who we are.
Trying to process for the team, we were the hunted last year because of how much money was spent on the roster. I know every social media team was ready to do that, Arizona State didn’t do that. We are a still bit of the hunted, but we are the Big 12 Champs, big game will be Houston. We are still hunting, we didn’t win a playoff game. We have a great spot for the trophy, we have to hunt wins in the playoffs. We felt the pressure last year with the talent in the NFL combine. We have a 3rd head coach that will be here on pro-day.
Statistically, without a doubt, you are going to play your best football of your career at Texas Tech. Fired about Coach Smith & Aubrey. Elite level of experience. Adam Trick’s goal is to play in the NFL and Smith just coached in the NFL. When you walk in and have that on your resume, then people listen. I don’t know that I’ll coach another DAvid Bailey or Lee Hunter. Where we lost NFL players we replaced with NFL players, you’re going to fall in love with Adam Trick and Tre White. You lose Lee Hunter, bring in Brice Butler. Blanchard and his crew were very deliberate when you lose somebody that we have to replace with that caliber or have that on your team. Receiver room, have Coy coming back, but add Kenny, Donte, JJ, and Malcolm. Lose Miller and add Carpenter. Spring football they have to learn to play Red Raider football. We learned a tough lesson in 2023 or 2024, we lost Steve Linton and didn’t replace him. You better have that guy on your roster or replace him.
We are trying to continue to build. Last year, in January, told Morton and Rodriguez that if we win, it will be because of them and say the same thing to Roberts and Curry and Wilson. We try to find guys who were leaders, Trick and White and Romaine and Sorsby were leaders on their team. Try to give them a voice to encourage them to be leaders. J’Koby Williams and Jacob Ponton have stepped up. Culture meetings and breakfasts on Friday mornings.
Jordan Church at right guard and Holton Hendrix, having Hunter Zambrano and is fully healthy, Connor Carty, Cash Cleveland, D’Anthis Upshaw are battling for guard. Jordan has a lot of football under his belt. We are a bigger team. Upshaw has had a great offseason and trying to be a leader. He has a video saying “Bet against me.”
Most positions we have good depth, we are deeper at receiver. See how the young tackles grow.
Hammond is in a good spot. Could be cleared week 3, Francis and Jones are taking 2 and 3 reps and rotate. Get Cannon with the 3’s and 4’s.
Biggest thing is to keep digging into how to practice with 25 days off, winning the Big 12 we had a lot of momentum. 25 days later you forget you played a game. It is really a process that we are trying to dig into and find answers do, no one has done it other than Indiana. It might not have mattered. That’s the biggest thing, are we more physical early, do we have a mock game. How banged up are you. Talk to NFL guys and they have no answers either, they have a regular bye week. We didn’t play well on offense, Mike Craven and his co-host and they were like Texas Tech got boat-raced, we didn’t play well and imagine that Dan wouldn’t want to score that last touchdown because that’s when his running back broke his collar bone. We didn’t perform well, but it is easy to throw things at Texas Tech, but they will find out we’re not going anywhere.
Sorsby is a magnet, has a chip on his shoulder, under recruited in high school. Bringing the team together, has a voice and presence. He wants to be great and wants to be on a team playing for something. One of the first people he met was Shiel Wood, he wanted to make sure it was a total football team. Wood told him that he didn’t need to worry about that side of the ball. Excited to see him grow in his offense. He’s looked good in football school.
[During the basketball halftime dunk competition.] When Carter came down on his wrist I hoped he was okay. I sat in donor seats and asked to make sure that these guys don’t get hurt. I was a little nervous.
Proud parent of my emotions watching the NFL Combine. They are talking about Bailey and Reese at Ohio State and Texas Tech took over Day 1 at the combine. The best story was Rodriguez. It was awesome to see the personalities, Hunter is such a bright light. so proud of those guys, good to see them perform at a high level. Cowboys head coach, Saints, jets, GM of the Panthers, every team. Really excited to see Cole Wisnieski run, disappointing he wasn’t at the combine, he will perform well, Tilman, Esters and Carter all feel good about their training.
Sent a text to the personnel group, one of the first books I read was the Lou Holtz book. I told Marcus Freeman that I didn’t hate Notre Dame or Catholics, I became a Notre Dame fan because Holtz was at Arkansas. Listened to a bunch of videos and sent a video to Garrett and the coaching staff. He was a great story teller and ferocious competitor. His address to the graduating class, great life advice.
Jett Carpenter is the Eagles scout was talking to Blanchard and told him about Carpenter. Really enjoy him, he has a high appreciation for being in Lubbock. You feel that from him. Julian are going to fall in love with him, reminds me of Gill-Howard, about 290 pounds. Their personalities really come out. Chase Campbell, he’s always smiling, Felix Ojo has a joy about him. It is really good to see that class come in and be on campus already. It is the strongest freshmen group we’ve had come in. Have functional strength. Aiden is benching 450. It is a fun group. Bradshaw has taken to Curry and Curry has a high capacity to work at a high level and Bradshaw likes to talk trash, he got Curry once and Curry asked if Bradshaw could do it again and again and he couldn’t. Freshmen class is large humans. Long in the secondary. Strong group of freshmen.
That’s a fun room, Curry stays in that room and it is a room you gravitate too. Brock has grown. Austin Romaine. Corey Platt has come in too. Having Curry and Roberts and BJ Jordan, we forget how much football he has played and play all 3 safety positions. Set the standard about what this is about. Austin fits in that room. I’ve gone back and re-watched the new guys. What their strengths and weaknesses are. Big fan of Romaine and as good as he’s played, I think that Wood is going to unlock how fast he plays.
Webb is Star. Bradshaw is Field. Maddox is Boundary. Getting some 3’s and 4’s, mostly some 4’s. Greene is a great teacher of football, can’t wait to watch Peyton Morgan play with a year under his belt. JJ Mays is at center and guard, Cleveland is at both.
When we recruited him we wanted him to excel in our offense. We will have the run game in, one of the best things he does is he extends the play. It’s not the design runs, but scrambling and he takes off and those will take naturally. He sees the field as a natural runner. Some of our receivers, Virgil doesn’t have great rush skills, Simmons does. When Mendoza had the quarterback draw, that is a play in this offense for Sorsby. He will play 228 to 234, so he’s a big human.
I wasn’t here when he was. Hid dad is in fundraising for athletic departments, had done things with his dad in Cedar Hill in 2003 and Dave Martin and him had a great relationship. we had some good connections. I do remember when he was coming out, he was underrecruited, but we didn’t take a quarterback in his class because we had Tyler, Donovan and Behren on campus and didn’t take a quarterback in that class.