LUBBOCK, Texas – This is a story that tries to answer a question: Can a high school guy make it as a college coach?
But before that question, this one: Does Joey McGuire still count as a high school guy? After all, perhaps he was more well known for the 14 seasons and three state championships at Cedar Hill, but he had spent the last five years on the staff at Baylor, first as tight ends coach under Matt Rhule and eventually as associate head coach and outside linebackers coach under Dave Aranda.
So, what exactly is the statute of limitations on being a high school coach vs. a college guy?
“You know that’s a really funny question,” McGuire said two weeks before his first official signing day at Tech. “Because at one point [at Baylor], my reps said, ‘You know, Joey, if you just go to the NFL as an assistant for one year, then you are no longer a high school coach. You are an NFL coach coming down to college. So, yeah, it is funny how people can get labeled.
“But what I would say first to everybody is this: I am a high school coach who gets to coach college football. That is just my DNA. And it’s one reason we are going to be successful here. I really believe I wouldn’t be here without my high school background. So, I’m going to wear that badge with pride. I think it is my DNA. I think it will help me relate with our players, but I think it will help us in recruiting, too. I’m going to carry that banner with pride.”
McGuire, 50, will wrap up his first signing period Wednesday, the bulk of the work was done in a mad scramble after he was hired on Nov. 9. He quickly cobbled together a staff and a class of 16 high school signees in December.
He’s sold them on his vision of Tech’s “brand” to be the “toughest, hardest-working, most competitive team in the country.”
“I felt like that was our brand at Cedar Hill,” McGuire said. “And then I saw Matt Rhule sell it and fell further in love with it. And I want do define for kids who we are. When things get chaotic, we want to be able to just go back to who we are. You sell that by being honest, transparent and authentic.”
Which was maybe not how Tech coaches have been viewed in recent years. If anything, the story hasn’t been about what previous coaches accomplished, but the spectacularly strange details of how they left. Mike Leach: Fired after allegations surfaced over the mistreatment of a player. Tommy Tuberville: Slipped out of a dinner with recruits to take the Cincinnati job and slink out of town. Kliff Kingsbury: Fired, only to fall into an NFL head coaching job.
It led to Big 12 mediocrity. Tech ranks eighth of the 10 current teams in conference win percentage (67-74, .475) since 2010. Tech needed somebody who wanted to stick around and who could be believed.
Football coaches around the state believe that is McGuire. After Tech’s athletic director, Kirby Hocutt, decided to move on from Matt Wells with four games left on the schedule, public sentiment focused on then SMU head coach Sonny Dykes, the son of late Tech coaching legend Spike Dykes, and interim coach and former Tech quarterback Sonny Cumbie.
McGuire acted quickly to get his name in front of Hocutt. And so did the coaches of the Texas High School Football Coaches Association; McGuire once served on its board, creating further far-flung bonds across the state. The coaches, perhaps also seeing that McGuire’s success might also have an impact on their coaching aspirations, told Hocutt they “would not let Joey McGuire fail.”
Changing times
Texas Tech Red Raiders new head football coach Joey McGuire is pictured in the indoor practice facility on campus in Lubbock, Texas, January 19, 2022.
Texas Tech Red Raiders new head football coach Joey McGuire is pictured in the indoor practice facility on campus in Lubbock, Texas, January 19, 2022.(Tom Fox)
It used to be that NFL coaches came from NFL backgrounds. And college coaches came from college backgrounds. And high school coaches were … well, you get the picture.
Times have changed a little bit. The lines are at least a little more blurred. Former Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury, for example, went from being fired at his alma mater to coaching the Arizona Cardinals. Rhule left Baylor after 2019 for the Carolina Panthers.
The high school to college transition has been murkier. When Notre Dame hired Ohio high school legend Gerry Faust 40 years ago, it was termed a “Bold Experiment.” When he was fired four years later, the whole idea kind of got shoved back into the closet.
Recently, results are more mixed. Gus Malzahn spent more than a decade coaching Arkansas high schoolers before jumping to colleges. In the span of eight seasons, he got an SEC job at Auburn and had the lead in the BCS Championship Game.
Closer to home, Todd Dodge went from Southlake Carroll to North Texas for four years. Chad Morris went from coaching Lake Travis High School to SMU in five seasons and then to Arkansas. How’d he do: Put it this way, he’s now back at Allen. More recently Jeff Traylor went from Gilmer to coaching UTSA in five seasons. Won 12 games this past season, too.
None of the three’s first head coaching job, however, was in a Power Five conference. McGuire’s is. Among the 24 coaches in the SEC and Big 12, Arkansas’ Sam Pittman, who spent four years running high schools in Arkansas, is the only other coach to have served as a high school head coach.
Among those with whom Tech’s athletic director Kirby Hocutt consulted on that very question – can a high school guy become a big time college head coach? – Bob Stoops, Mack Brown and Rhule all gave him the same answer.
“Good football coaches are good coaches regardless of what level they coached at,” Hocutt said Stoops told him. “Mack Brown had similar sentiments. So you are talking about some of giants, right? And they were all consistent: This guy is the real deal.
“They said Coach McGuire gets it as far as building relationships, building relationships specifically with young people and with Texas high school football coaches. He understands the necessity of building positive, healthy, authentic and sincere relationships and he understands how that translates to success on Saturday afternoon.”
Said Rhule: “He is going to be unbelievably demanding, but he is going to love every player. He approaches guys from the point of view that their worth isn’t based on what they are as a player; it’s the person who is most important. He’s a leader and a builder. He just gets it. He is one in a million.”
A difficult transition
Texas Tech Red Raiders new head football coach Joey McGuire is pictured in their indoor practice facility on the Lubbock, Texas campus, January 19, 2022.
Texas Tech Red Raiders new head football coach Joey McGuire is pictured in their indoor practice facility on the Lubbock, Texas campus, January 19, 2022.(Tom Fox)
Joey McGuire had the chance to move to the college ranks earlier. His authenticity got in the way. Namely, authenticity as a dad.
When former Allen coach Todd Graham got the Rice job on Jan. 1, 2006, McGuire was one of his first calls. Get to Houston, Graham implored. They’d figure everything else out. McGuire, though, was on the jetway at DFW International with his family, about to head out on a promised post-Christmas trip. He was not getting off the plane.
Graham reached out again during his time at Tulsa, but that fizzled over some other shuffling. In 2014, new Texas coach Charlie Strong called. It was tempting. One issue: McGuire’s son, Garrett was about to head into his senior season at Cedar Hill. McGuire wrestled over the idea and sought out then TXHSFCA executive director and former Converse Judson coach D.W. Rutledge. Rutledge, who coached his own son in high school, told McGuire he thought he would regret making that trade.
What Rutledge didn’t say at the time was his own experience.
“Very rarely did you see guys jump circles,” Rutledge said. “If you wanted to be a college coach, you got in that circle pretty quickly. If you didn’t it became difficult for guys to jump from one circle to the other. For him to do that, it’s one of the things that makes Joey pretty special.”
Said McGuire: “I’ve never wanted to be a coordinator; I wanted to be a head coach. When I went to Baylor, I didn’t know how long it would take, but I went there to learn everything I could from [Rhule]. He accelerated my growth. And I knew something was going to open up and I was going to try and go get it.”
Well, he’s got it now. And if he succeeds at Texas Tech, it may just pave the way for others in his situation to get more chances to transition from high school to college.
That could be a heavy burden.
That’s not the way Joey McGuire sees things.
“The first night before my first practice at Baylor, I told guys that when I stepped out on the grass, I was doing it for every high school football coach in the state of Texas. I’m not going to screw this up. We’ve got a number of guys on this staff who came from high schools, too. And I think they all feel that way. We’re going to carry being high school coaches with great pride.”
