TexasTech.com Mailbag: Joey McGuire

With the first spring practice just over a month away, we gathered some of your best questions about Texas Tech Football and brought them to The Brand himself, head coach Joey McGuire, for the very first edition of The Texas Tech Mailbag!

Each week, TexasTech.com will solicit questions for our coaches and student-athletes to answer. Keep an eye out on our social media channels as we'll post early in the week who that week's interviewee will be.

With that being said, let's jump into this week's questions.

@zachary.cole.94 (Instagram): What are you most excited about with the new South Endzone and Womble Football Center?

"With the south end zone, I'm really excited to see the brand-new Double T (scoreboard). Until you're on that field or in the stadium, I don't think people understand just how big and almost intimidating that south end zone is going to be on gameday. I'm really excited about that. With the Womble Football facility, it's probably the walk-through room for me. I think people and players learn in a lot of different ways , and you're going to get a bunch of different stuff in that walk-through room. With that and the players' lounge -- the one thing we always talk about is when they come to the building, we want that to be the best part of their day. We're going to have some really cool stuff in there for them to be able to relax and get to know each other."

@dawsonvaughn_19 (X): What is the game plan going into next year? Coming off a season where the expectations were so high and the expectations didn't match up, how do you as a coach keep the momentum going and keep both the fan base and the players 100% invested in the plan you have?

"The players are easy because we're really all on the same team. They get to see this plan every single day and they're part of it, so they're invested and they're all in. With the fan base, I think we continue to show everyone that everybody in this program is excited about being in Lubbock and excited about Texas Tech. I think it's really important to not necessarily show everything in the spring game, but show some of the new guys that came in either from another university or as a mid-year freshman. I hope that we continue to instill a belief in our fan base that we're going in a really good direction. It's frustrating at times. You know, I'm the same way. I had high expectations and we didn't get there, but I do think we're still going in the right direction."

@JasonBrown96 (X): What is your first selling point for recruits?

"I think Lubbock is just an incredible place. So when we're talking about getting guys here, you have everything that you want: you can get a great education, our facilities when the south end zone and Womble Football facility is done are going to be as good as anybody in the country. You get to play in front of a truly passionate fan base and you're playing in a college town. There's 300,000 people in and surrounding Lubbock and every place you go, you're going to see the Double T. They feel that, and when they come and visit, they really get to see it. I think Lubbock is an easy place to sell."

X: What percentage of your time is spent with recruiting/roster management vs coaching/game plan? And do you ever get to see your wife?

"Well, I get to see Debbie because she comes up here a lot to be around the players. In the offseason, she's here a lot more but during the season, it's pretty limited. I would love to say that I get to coach and game plan more than 50%, but in this world we're living in with recruiting and roster management, I think that's as important as anything because getting really good players and keeping really good players is a huge part of what we're doing right now. I love spring football because it's the purest form of coaching football. You're not getting ready for an opponent, so you're really just coaching fundamentals. So I really excited about our coach a lot more during the spring."

@jeff_benton_ (Instagram): What do you define as a successful season?

"Two things: graduate the players that are on track to graduate and win the Big 12. Every single year I'm here, anything less than winning the Big 12 is a disappointment. That's our plan and our goal."

@D3vJaVu (X): What kind of offense are we going to run this year? Are we turning more into an air raid with Micah Hudson, Josh Kelly and crew or are we going to go with more of a run-type offense with Tahj (Brooks) and crew? Or are we trying to keep it more balanced?

"I think the No. 1 type of offense is keeping Behren Morton healthy. He's having a great start to his offseason. I think you're going to see a very explosive offense to where it's run or pass, and you can do either and take what they give you. We had to become more of a run offense because of our injuries to our quarterbacks, but I also think we've added Josh Kelly, Caleb Douglas and Micah Hudson and have guys on this on the team like Coy Eakin. I'm also really excited to see the three young guys in T.J. West, D.J. Crest and Kelby Valsin. I think that our wide receiver room's different, and I also I think we have one of the best rooms in the country when it comes to tight ends. So, I think we have a chance to be really explosive, but it all starts with being better up front and keeping that quarterback healthy."

@nichernandez06 (Instagram): What does a typical day or week look like for a student-athlete during the season?

"It's 100% a full-time job. The only days or afternoons that you'd have free is Thursday afternoon. That's kind of the coaches' 'date night' for them to be able to get out of here early and go see their families. We do everything in the morning on that day, so they have Thursday afternoon off. If we have a home game, depending on what time that game is, then they'll get Saturday off, either afternoon or evening. If it's an evening game, they're probably only getting an hour or so. The only times that they're not in class, in this building or sleeping. It's a full-time job."

@raider_red98_ (Instagram): Do you feel this era of student-athlete is sustainable? It seems the rich get richer and smaller schools won't survive. What say you?

"It's going to be interesting. I think we're going to see a huge change sometime between September and January from the standpoint of rulings on what the future student-athlete looks like. The model that we have right now, which is almost anything goes and the 'wild, wild west,' I don't know if that's sustainable. There's got to be more rules put into place for everybody's protection and the student-athlete's protection. Right now, as much freedom as they have or they think they have, I think that if you look up five years from now, you're going to see that we did our student-athletes a disservice. Because every time you transfer, the percentage of you graduating from college, and at the end of the day, they're student-athletes and that degree is so important."

@zstoney5 (Instagram): Favorite Mexican restaurant in the 806?

"Taqueria Jalisco."

@jerryj.mcdonald (Instagram): What is your favorite Texas Tech tradition?

"I absolutely love the tortillas. You can't go anywhere and not see a tortilla fly, whether it be home or away. I think one thing that's been a tradition for a long time is 'The Saddle' which we didn't have this season because of the south end zone being down. I think that is going to get a lot more exposure in the new south end zone because of where it's going to be placed and people actually seeing it on gameday when we're coming out of the tunnel and coming through the crowd."

Players Mentioned

D.J. Crest

Caleb Douglas

Coy Eakin

Josh Kelly

Behren Morton

Kelby Valsin

T.J. West

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