Texas Tech football: Joey McGuire is treading water but is that good enough?

McGuire is not performing appreciably better than recent Texas Tech head coaches

It has been a predictable start to the McGuire era.  That’s because he is essentially on a pace similar to the other men who have tried to fix this program since 2010.

Back in 2011, when Tommy Tuberville coached his 21st game at Tech, he was 13-8 overall.  That might seem respectable but keep in mind that game 21 for him was a brutal 41-7 home loss to Iowa State that began a five-game losing streak to end the season.

Of course, what made that losing streak so unfathomable was that it started just one week after Tuberville’s team authored a 41-38 road win over No. 3 Oklahoma.  That year, Tech would finish with a losing record for the first time in the existence of the Big 12, which started play in 1996.

As for Kingsbury, he sat at just 11-10 after 21 games, just like McGuire.  However, he started 7-0 in 2013 (due to an amazingly weak start to the schedule).  That meant that he would go just 4-10 in his next 14 games.

Unfortunately, his 21st game was also a disaster.  In fact, it could be argued that the 82-27 loss at TCU was the most embarrassing performance in program history.

Next came Matt Wells (unfortunately) and no one should want to be compared to him as a Power 5 head coach.  His 21-game record was a meager 7-14 and, unlike the other men discussed here today, he never managed to post a winning season with the Red Raiders.

In case you might be wondering, Mike Leach was simply OK in his first 21 games going 12-9.  Game 21 for him was a memorable one as well, though, as his team shut out Texas A&M 12-0 in Lubbock, a day that remains legendary for the post-game fight between the two fan bases.

McGuire is tracking along at a pace comparable to Kingsbury and just behind Tuberville and Leach.  However, given the way 2023 is going, that feels terribly disappointing.  How much of that is his fault though?