In the year Repetitions to end in 2022

July 14, 2022; Arlington, TX, United States; Texas Tech Red Raiders head coach Joey McGuire is interviewed during Big 12 Media Day at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Myron-USA Today Sports

One of the best things about the 2022 Texas Tech football season is that it represents a fresh start for the program. In fact, new head coach Joey McGuire has never been a head coach at the collegiate level, as clean a start as any program could hope for.

Of course, some may hold his lack of college head coaching experience against him. That’s understandable.

But one of the refreshing aspects of hiring a first-time head coach is that he won’t have to worry about McGuire in past seasons like many of us did with Matt Wells when he takes over the program before the 2019 season. That year, we spent the entire season thinking that Wells’ three losing campaigns in his last four seasons at Utah State would be in over his head in the Big 12 and that his fears were legitimate.

Of course, the last time the Red Raiders hired a head coach with no experience leading a program, it didn’t go well. But Tech in 2010 When Kliff Kingsbury was brought in as head coach in 2013, popular opinion was divided upon his hiring.

Some felt he was an unmissable star in the coaching world after helping Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel to the Heisman Trophy. Meanwhile, others worried that the then 34-year-old was too green given his age and only five years in the coaching game.

Naturally, we have to list that attempt as a failure, as Kingsbury would have a losing record during his six-year tenure in Lubbock. But is that due to a lack of experience as a head coach, or other factors such as a lack of commitment on the recruiting trail, a lack of quality assistant coaches on staff or a significant financial commitment to the program?

The truth is that every head coach hire is a complete crapshoot. For example, first-time college head coaches Spike Dykes and Mike Leach proved to be two of the most successful head coaches in Texas Tech football history, preceded by Tommy Tuberville’s disaster in Lubbock.

So, we can simply be grateful for the fresh start under McGuire and look forward to the future, hoping that this new era of the program will turn the tide for the Red Raiders. Maybe if McGuire can be the man to put an end to the following unpleasant streaks, we’ll know that change is afoot.