If you pay attention to Texas Tech football, the 2024 season is unlike any you’ve ever seen in at least one sense. None of the Red Raiders‘ first six opponents are teams they played last year.
That’s been the case only once previously, in 1932. Since then, only in 1937, 1996, 2006 and 2008 have the first six games featured only one opponent the Red Raiders faced the year before.
The rarity happened this year because the Big 12 schedule architect put new members Arizona State, Cincinnati and Arizona at the front of the Red Raiders’ conference schedule. Non-conference foes Abilene Christian, Washington State and North Texas weren’t carryovers either.
I wondered if that meant more man hours for the Tech staff this summer preparing for those teams as opposed to, say, TCU and Baylor, teams the Red Raiders see every year.
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“What we do coming out of spring and into summer is we break down our first four opponents,” Tech coach Joey McGuire said Monday. “So we kind of had everybody up to this point broken down, and then we’ll watch (game-five opponent) Cincinnati, we’ve watched (game-six opponent) Arizona, but once you start getting into the season, now you’ve got four games that you can watch, and so you kind of know who these guys are.”
The Red Raiders don’t play Iowa State until November, but in preparing for North Texas and in gearing up for Cincinnati, the team Tech hosts at 7 p.m. Saturday, the video Tech coaches studied wasn’t like a show they’d never seen. UNT defensive coordinator Matt Caponi and new Cincinnati defensive coordinator Tyson Veidt are former defensive staff members under Iowa State DC Jon Heacock, whose scheme has given Tech fits over the years.
“When they hired the linebacker coach from Iowa State,” McGuire said, “we knew we’re going to get a lot of what Iowa State does and they do. They do a really good job.”
There’s familiarity there. Should be less guesswork in the preparation this week.
“Most of the stuff that we do in the summer,” McGuire said, “every single week we have a meeting. It starts then kind of presenting an overview of the coaches and who they are and the special-teams coordinator and then their personnel. And so we do it with the first four opponents, and then we’ll watch throughout the summer, the other people, but not as heavy breakdown until (more recently), because we’re going to get four games (of video).”
Back in ’32, the first six games for Pete Cawthon’s boys were against Panhandle A&M, Texas A&M, SMU, Austin College, Arizona and New Mexico Normal (what’s now New Mexico Highlands). Like McGuire, Cawthon was in his third season coaching Tech. Also like McGuire, his teams had faced none of the first six not only the year before but in his tenure, period.
Pete must’ve figured it out. The boys finished 10-2 that year, including 5-1 against those first half dozen.
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Team hopping among players existed in those days, too, but it was considered dirty pool and probably not as prevalent as today in the transfer-portal era.
That’s another thing. Cincinnati’s second-leading rusher, running back Evan Pryor, and its second-leading receiver, tight end Joe Royer, are newly arrived from Ohio State.
“We’re seeing some players that were playing for the Buckeyes last year,” defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter said, “so you don’t see those guys when you’re looking at them on tape last year.
“Other games, like our opener, we’re playing a new coordinator, so you’re watching his tape where he was at (Valdosta State). Our players are watching, ‘But guys, you’re not playing against these (Valdosta State) players. You’re playing against Abilene Christian guys.’ So you’ve got to mix and match.
“Those things can be a little bit difficult. But once we get into this part of the season, we had a feel for them last year. Now we’ve seen four games. We kind of know who their players are.”
Even when the Red Raiders get back to seeing the teams they know, more than rote preparation will be required. Take TCU, for example. The Horned Frogs offensive coordinator is Kendal Briles, for the second year and he was in the Big 12 previously with Baylor. But the Horned Frogs’ defensive coordinator is Andy Avalos. The two years before, it was Joe Gillespie. A month from now, McGuire and company will be able to detail their differences.
They took a crash course on the new teams this summer, so McGuire couched it as no big deal.
“It’s definitely different,” he said. “It’s fun to play new people. It’s fun to get that challenge, but we would do the same thing (in preparation) if it was somebody we knew.”
