Texas Tech football preps for spring practice with goal of CFP win
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For the Texas Tech football team, the bad news about the Orange Bowl was that the Red Raiders flew halfway across the country to not score a point, and the 23-0 loss to Oregon ended an otherwise memorable season.
The good news? Well, Texas Tech’s still never won a College Football Playoff game, so Joey McGuire has a ready-made motivational tactic that can last from now until December. The Texas Tech coach got mildly irritated this week listening to one of his favorite podcasters run down the Red Raiders for their no-show on New Year’s Day in Miami.
“We didn’t perform well,” McGuire said on Thursday, March 5, “but it’s easy to throw, I guess, stuff at Texas Tech, because we don’t have the so-called blueblood label that everybody else does and maybe they thought we shouldn’t be there, but they’re going to find out we’re not going anywhere.”
Texas Tech starts spring practice this coming week with a couple of workouts on March 10 and March 12 before players get the following week off for spring break. The Red Raiders believe they’re well-armed for another run come fall.
From a 12-2 team that won the program’s first Big 12 championship, Tech returns seven players on offense and six on defense who started at least six games last season, plus a kicker who made 22 field goals. Among the returnees: second-team all-America defensive tackle A.J. Holmes, Paul Hornung Award finalist J’Koby Williams, 1,000-yard rusher Cameron Dickey, freshman all-America tackle Jacob Ponton and first-team all-Big 12 cornerback Brice Pollock and kicker Stone Harrington.
The Red Raiders added 21 players via the NCAA transfer portal, including Cincinnati quarterback Brendan Sorsby and Kansas State linebacker Austin Romaine, both second-team all-Big 12 last season.
Asked how the Red Raiders shifted from being the hunter to the hunted, McGuire said he felt they were the hunted last season, even after an 8-5 showing in 2024.
“We were everybody’s biggest game,” he said, “because they made such a big deal about how much money we spent on our roster, so it was almost like, ‘We’re going to show you.’
“I know every (opponent’s) social media team was ready to send out, ‘Our roster wasn’t this, and we still beat y’all.’ I was really impressed with Arizona State [after the Sun Devils beat the Red Raiders.] It says a lot about them and who they are that they didn’t do that, because they were champions [in 2024]. They were the Big 12 champs from the year before, so they expected to beat us. That’s how it should be.
“Now we are the Big 12 champs, but we still are hunting. We didn’t win a playoff game. Our goals are still going to be to win the Big 12. We’ve got a great spot in the trophy room for the 2026 trophy, and then we’ve got to go hunt wins in the College Football Playoff.”
Texas Tech football holes to fill
Among the priorities between now and the spring game on Friday, April 17, at Jones AT&T Stadium are developing two new offensive guards and a new safety starter. Those competitions consist of internal options only.
McGuire said the fight for the guard jobs is a battle royal among six candidates: Louisville transfer Jordan Church and holdovers Cash Cleveland, Hunter Zambrano, Holton Hendrix, D’Anthis Upshaw and Connor Carty.
Tech has returning starters in star safety/outside linebacker John Curry and field safety Brenden Jordan, but boundary safety Cole Wisniewski completed his eligibility.
It’s expected that Jordan will move to boundary safety with Peyton Morgan or Oliver Miles III taking over at field safety, or that Jordan will stay at field safety if Malik Esquerra can assert himself at boundary safety. Morgan, Miles, and Esquerra are all sophomores who were state top-100 recruits coming out of high school.
Texas Tech football players on shelf for spring
The Avalanche-Journal previously reported that quarterback Will Hammond (ACL tear), running back Quinten Joyner (ACL tear), defensive tackle Jayden Cofield (Achilles tendon partial tear) and linebacker Mike Dingle (multiple knee ligament tears) are out for spring ball. Joyner’s expected to be medically cleared in June, Hammond, Dingle and Cofield during the season.
McGuire said Thursday that several others will miss spring practice. Cornerback Brice Pollock and Tarrion Grant had shoulder surgeries, and defensive tackle Dylan Singleton and linebacker Wesley Smith are also limited by shoulder issues. Wide receiver Kai Powell (ACL) and tight end Jack Esparza (foot) are out, and receiver Leyton Stone (hamstring) is limited.
McGuire said Hammond was medically released to make throws last week, but it could be week three of the season before he’s fully cleared. That’ll leave Tulsa transfer Kirk Francis and redshirt freshman Lloyd Jones III to compete for second-team snaps.
McGuire said last month that Chase Campbell will be limited to individual drills as the freshman wide receiver rehabs from shoulder surgery that ended his senior season at Frenship.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech football preps for spring practice with goal of CFP win
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