Texas Tech has the best team money can buy and now, it’s trying to prove it’s college football’s best team – period.
Texas Tech meets Oregon in one of the CFP’s quarterfinal games Thursday, and both are symbolic of the new model for team building as we move into a new era for college athletics.
In short, money talks. Take Texas Tech, the latest and best example. Once the courts threw out all the rules and regulations governing college sports, the best way to get the best players and build the best teams was to buy them.
And after years of being mired in mediocrity; Texas Tech had never won a Big 12 championship before this year despite being one of the league’s founding members in 1996, some big donors said “enough”.
Led by Cody Campbell, chairman of the Board of Regents and founder of Double Eagle Energy, Texas Tech boosters poured millions into the program this year. They spent $12 million on 21 transfer portal players and put another $28 million into NIL and roster building.
Armed with his new bank roll, Texas Tech’s veteran coach, Joey McGuire, totally reshaped his team. To go along with the new players, he brought in new offensive and defensive coordinators and made other changes in his coaching staff.
The model was Oregon, which, with backing from Phil Knight and Nike, has been at this for a while and transformed Oregon into a national power. It’s estimated that Oregon’s roster this year cost over $40 million.
“First, they’ve (Oregon) done a good job of hiring coaches,” McGuire commented at a press conference before Thursday’s game. “(Dan) Lanning was a slam dunk.
“Second, they’ve made it cool to be an Oregon Duck. I mean they’ve got every uniform known to man and players love that. With Adidas and Patrick Mahomes, We’re doing the same thing,” McGuire continued.
“We’re really fortunate with Adidas as our partner,” McGuire went on. “We’ve got some great looks.
“And then you know they’ve got a great booster in Phil Knight who said ‘Hey, we’re going to win at the highest level and there’s no excuses when it comes to finances.’
“And you know, you turn that around and I think we’ve shown that we’re doing that. I think we’re really comparable (to Oregon). We’ve got guys that have really stepped up and done a great job,” McGuire said.
“I kind of call them the big five,” McGuire said of the quintet, all of whom are worth millions and at least one of whom, Cody Campbell, is worth billions.
“Whenever you talk about Cody and John (Sellers) and Mike (Wallace) and Dusty (Womble) and Gary (Petersen), those guys and everybody else in Red Raider nation, we’re kind of comparable (to Oregon) on and off the field. They’ve just done it for a little longer,” McGuire said.
“He’s built a great roster,” Oregon’s Lanning said of McGuire, also at a press conference before their playoff game. “College football’s about adapting and this (Texas Tech) is obviously a program that’s done an unbelievable job adapting and saying ‘OK, let’s make our team the best it can possibly be’.
“They’ve done that this year,” Lanning said. “So they deserve credit for that because you have to evaluate; there’s a lot of teams that take people out of the portal, right?
“There’s not a lot of teams that necessarily have success,” Lanning continued. “It’s about evaluating that talent, getting them to play together and creating a team that does that. This is a team that’s done that.
“There’s just kind of an admiration and respect for teams that are doing it at a high level and Texas Tech’s certainly one of those teams.”
While some play down Texas Tech’s accomplishments because they don’t consider the Big 12 to be a very strong conference, Lanning is not one of them.
“Good football is good football and I’ve kind of always said that regardless of what conference you’re in,” Lanning remarked. “Are you playing a high level of ball? and these guys (Texas Tech) play a really high level of football, right?
“And they’ve not just beaten opponents, they’ve dominated them, right? And to dominate the way they’ve dominated speaks volumes about what kind of team this is. So we’ve got a ton of respect for them because they’ve got the winning formula.”
That may be true, and it is true that Texas Tech has turned things around and accomplished a lot this year. Beating Oregon, though, will require Tech’s best effort, because these Ducks aren’t quacks.
