Though Big 12 dreams are dashed, Texas Tech still has plenty to play for in 2024

Saturday's 35-34 loss at TCU was an elimination game for the Texas Tech football team. Dropping to 3-2 in Big 12 play (and 5-3 overall), the Red Raiders no longer have any realistic hopes of playing for the Big 12 championship or a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff.

So does that mean that the 2024 season is a lost cause? Not according to head coach Joey McGuire who said Monday that his team can still advance the forward momentum of the program.

"There's a lot of things that are on the table," McGuire said. "I know nobody wants to hear this but this is what I said to the team yesterday. We have not won four consecutive bowl games since Mike Leach. Ok. It's 2024. So that was 2000-2010. We have an opportunity to do that."

McGuire actually misspoke here. He likely meant to say that the program hasn't been to four consecutive bowl games since the Leach era. That's because in his next sentence, he correctly pointed out that the program has never won four bowl games in four consecutive seasons.

"Texas Tech, in the history of Texas Tech (and I could be totally wrong about this) I go back to 1932," he said, "and I know we've been playing since 1925, Texas Tech has never won four consecutive bowl games. We have the opportunity to do that. Alright?

"I believe we can beat anybody on our schedule. It's been since 2009 that Texas Tech has won nine games. We have the opportunity to do that."

To get to nine wins is a lofty goal for McGuire. That would require the Red Raiders winning the remainder of their games including this week at No. 11 Iowa State.

Granted, McGuire does have a history at Tech of finishing the season well. In November games, he's gone a combined 6-2 over the past two seasons which includes records of 3-1 in the season's final month in each of his two years on the job. This year, he's trying to improve upon that to get to nine wins, which would be a new high-water mark for the program under his guidance. It would also be the most regular-season wins the Red Raiders have amassed since 2008 when they went 11-1.

"So whenever we're sitting here talking about where we are, where we've been, and where we need to go," McGuire said, "we are pushing this program forward. We're going to find a way to do that. I'm fired up about that. I'm not upset about any of that. I'm fired up about that because I want my guys to believe that, and they do.

"When we talked through yesterday, I met with the seniors and [said] 'Look, you have the opportunity to leave this place better than you found it when you came in'. And they have, just by winning three bowl games. They've made it better than what it was before.

"But we still have things to do. So I don't want them, because we lose by a point and it's a frustrating loss and everybody feels like the sky is falling, you know, and I think it's hit me two or three times that this is the end of the season. We still have a lot of things that we can do that haven't been done here or haven't been done in a long, long time."

After a 5-1 start to the season that saw Tech go 3-0 in Big 12 play, this is not the conversation that most in Scarlet and Black were hoping to have as we enter November. However, the reality that we must accept is that this program was never ready to compete for a conference title this year.

We saw in the first two games of the season that there were glaring weaknesses and major flaws with this roster. Sure, playing three beatable teams to open conference play helped mask those shortcomings but the warts of this team have been exposed over the past two games.

That doesn't mean, though, that this season has to be a lost cause. Rather, it could be a building block as Tech continues to try to take steps towards legitimate relevance in the conference and on a national scale.

Even an eight-win regular season would be the best Tech has achieved since 2009 and that would be a step forward given the youth on this roster, especially on the defensive side of the ball. So though there will be no championships to celebrate in 2024, the remainder of the schedule still presents an opportunity to continue the forward progress the program has created during the McGuire era.