Oregon State head coach has backhanded compliment for Joey McGuire

Joey McGuire and his Texas Tech program are one of the talking points in college football this year. That means that each week, opposing coaches will be asked their opinions on what is being built in Lubbock.

That was certainly true for Oregon State head coach JaMarcus Shephard, who, ahead of his team's matchup with the Red Raiders on Saturday, paid McGuire a bit of a backhanded compliment by carrying on the same tired narrative that the rest of the nation has been spreading over the past two years.

"Certainly, I think that there's this idea that they've just acquired all this talent overnight," Shephard said in his weekly press conference. "I also think that the head coach has to do a good job of building a culture where the players want to play for him, and so, that's the one thing I've noticed about Coach McGuire

“It seems like his team wants to play for him, but I'll also say this: it is a little bit easier, and you have a little bit more want to when you don't have to worry about if mom or dad has to pay their light bill or their rent or if they're going to be able to get a flight to come to the game or get a hotel room, Airbnb, whatever it is. That makes it a little bit easier for those guys to want to play a little bit harder for the coach.”

Here we go again. Another head coach using the excuse of not having as much money to spend on their roster as Texas Tech does to preemptively explain why their team is likely going to be dismantled by the Red Raiders.

Why can't coaches simply take the high road with McGuire and talk about the culture he has built and the way he has been able to surround himself with excellent people and leave it at that? Do opposing coaches continually bring up the money that Texas' Steve Sarkisian, Ohio State's Ryan Day, or Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman have at their disposal instead of simply giving them their due? Does the narrative surrounding those traditionally strong programs begin and end with the money being pumped into their rosters, as is the case with McGuire's program?

Shephard is minimizing what McGuire has accomplished at Texas Tech

There is no denying that Shephard is envious of the resources McGuire has to work with. But by focusing only on money, he is missing the point.

There are tons of programs around the nation that spend as much or more money than Tech. Yet, not all experienced the same success that Tech did in 2025.

While we don't know exactly how much each university spends on its football roster, it is safe to assume that programs like Tennessee, LSU, Southern California, Michigan, and Notre Dame all have rosters that are in the same ballpark as Tech's in terms of roster cost. Yet, none of them made the playoff last year despite being far more tradition-rich than McGuire's program.

What's more, Shephard's point about players being able to play harder when their quality of life is taken care of from a financial perspective is not necessarily true. In fact, there is an old adage that suggests it is hard to hunt when your stomach is full.

In other words, once players get a big enough payday to take care of their families, it might be human nature to let off the gas a little bit, knowing that they are already millionaires (in some cases). Isn't it more logical to think that players who are still striving for their payday and a better life for their loved ones would play harder knowing that they don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank?

Realistically, there are challenges for coaches of any program. For those in McGuire's place, the challenge is managing the egos, expectations, and entitlements that can come from players who make as much or more money per year than most of the coaches they play for.

On the other hand, Shephard is in the group of coaches who have to grind away to find under-the-radar players who will play for him at a reduced price. That naturally puts his program at a talent deficit. However, it doesn't mean that someone in his position can't compete with a high-priced roster.

For instance, just this past week, Western Michigan should have beaten Michigan were it not for the controversial decision by the officials to put an extra second on the game clock, allowing the Wolverines to score the game-winning TD on a Hail Mary.

Likewise, Boise State led No. 2 Oregon for most of the game last week before falling to the Ducks by just seven points on the road. So it would be interesting to ask Shephard if he felt like the lower-priced rosters of Western Michigan and Boise State played harder in spite of not having the financial assurances that the players on the Michigan and Oregon rosters had. So why can't Shephard focus on getting his under-priced roster to play up to the same level?

Ultimately, what a no-name coach of an irrelevant Group of 6 program thinks shouldn't matter to Texas Tech fans. However, it is tiring to see people in the industry continually refuse to give McGuire his full due as a coach. Hopefully, the more Tech wins, the more that will change. Until then, though, we are going to have to hear this same tired refrain, regardless of how tired it is.

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