LUBBOCK, Texas — The West Texas dust hasn’t settled, but the message from Jones AT&T Stadium is loud and clear: Joey McGuire has pushed every chip to the middle of the table. After detonating the transfer portal to assemble what On3 now rates as the nation’s No. 1 incoming class for 2025, the Texas Tech head coach followed up with a sweeping overhaul of his defensive and support staff. Inside the Womble Football Center, the rallying cry is simple—win big this fall, or watch years of momentum evaporate.
Texas Tech’s portal haul is breathtaking in both volume and star power. On3’s composite “Transfer Portal Index” lists the Red Raiders No. 1 nationally, edging out LSU and Ole Miss thanks to 13 blue-chip additions headlined by former five-star cornerback Zaire Stokes (Georgia) and 1,200-yard receiver Mario Polk (Oregon)
That group included quarterback Devin Brown, the former Ohio State backup who impressed coaches with his command of new coordinator Graham Harrell’s Air Raid-inspired playbook during closed spring scrimmages. Add in a quietly stacked defensive front—Florida State tackle Daniel Lyons, TCU edge rusher Caleb Fox, and Alabama linebacker Shawn Murphy—and Tech’s two-deep now reads less like a reclamation project and more like an SEC West depth chart.
Behind the scenes, deep-pocketed donors from the Permian Basin have underwritten an NIL budget rumored to top $13 million. A program once fighting to keep pace in facilities recently christened a $242 million contiguous football complex, touted as one of the largest in college athletics
To maximize that talent influx, McGuire tore up a coaching staff that was once lauded for its continuity. In December, longtime defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter and secondary architect Marcel Yates were fired after Tech finished 15th in total defense and dead last in Big 12 pass defense
The mass exodus left McGuire scrambling for replacements, but insiders insist the shake-up was deliberate, not desperate. “If you’re going to spend like a contender, you have to coach like one,” one school official quipped after the DeRuyter move. That philosophy birthed a new-look staff featuring former USC play-caller Graham Harrell, Mississippi State defensive whiz Matt Brock, and NFL veteran Joe Barry overseeing linebackers.
The rest of the Big 12 has taken notice. One rival head coach told Wreck ‘Em Red this week that “on paper, Tech is talented enough to win the league right now” and added that 2025 marks a “prove-it year” for McGuire’s regime
National writers echo that sentiment. Mike Farrell Sports labeled McGuire’s roster flip “epic” but cautioned that anything short of nine or ten wins will reopen questions about whether splashy portal spending delivers sustained success
Internally, the Red Raiders refuse to cloak expectations in coach-speak. Veterans in the locker room referenced “Championship or bust” T-shirts handed out during January workouts, while McGuire privately told boosters he values this roster as Tech’s most talented since the Mike Leach heyday.
On offense, Harrell is expected to blend Kittley’s vertical concepts with a heavier dose of tempo. The spring game hinted at more quarterback run packages and a deeper tight-end rotation, nodding to the skill sets Brown and Utah transfer tight end Landon King bring to the table.
Defensively, Brock inherits a group that was torched for 32.7 points per game last fall. Early practice notes spotlight a switch from a base 3-3-5 to multiple fronts designed to free Fox and Lyons off the edge while hiding inexperience at nickel. McGuire also emphasized situational tackling drills after Tech ranked 95th nationally in red-zone defense
Red Raider Nation is simultaneously giddy and uneasy. Online forums dissect every arrival flight to Lubbock, searching for the next four-star commit, while talk-radio callers warn that another 8-4 campaign would make the “portal-class parade” feel hollow. The dichotomy is stark: either Tech capitalizes on this one-year talent spike, or skeptics will argue the Red Raiders mortgaged program culture for a splashy headline.
Long-time season-ticket holder Carlos Hernandez captured the mood best: “I’ve never seen this much talent walk into our locker room, but I’ve also never seen so many assistants walk out. We’re either hosting GameDay in October or we’re back to asking why nothing ever changes.”
A perfect storm is brewing on the South Plains. Joey McGuire has leveraged NIL money, the transfer portal, and a clean-sweep coaching reset to construct the most gifted roster Texas Tech has rolled out in decades. But in the unforgiving calculus of modern college football, spending without winning yields only louder critics.
