Texas Tech’s Big 12 Drama Just Took Another Turn With Joey McGuire

Texas Tech’s Big 12 drama just took another turn.

In this video, I break down the latest chapter in the growing tension between Texas Tech, Cody Campbell, Brett Yormark, and now Joey McGuire. What started as a fight over the Big 12 moving Texas Tech vs. Houston to Friday night has evolved into a bigger conversation about conference leadership, TV money, Texas high school football, recruiting, and why Texas Tech keeps publicly pushing back on the Big 12.

I explain why Cody Campbell’s original comments about Brett Yormark created such a stir, why Joey McGuire getting involved changes the conversation, and whether Texas Tech actually has a legitimate gripe here or is simply talking tough after signing the same TV deal as everyone else.

This is really about more than one Friday night game. It’s about Texas Tech’s posture toward the Big 12, Brett Yormark’s authority, and the growing public friction around a conference that needs unity far more than more drama.

Chapters:
0:00 Cody Campbell and Brett Yormark beef cools off
0:54 How the Texas Tech-Houston Friday night controversy started
1:52 Why Texas Tech hates the Friday night move
2:50 Joey McGuire enters the Big 12 drama
3:41 McGuire’s argument about Lubbock and high school football
4:28 Why Joey McGuire’s comments are different from Cody Campbell’s
5:16 Why Cody Campbell made this a bigger story
6:12 Cody Campbell tries to walk it back
6:59 The key line that still raises questions
7:47 Does Brett Yormark work for Texas Tech?
8:44 Why the temperature came down
9:40 Why the Big 12 needs games like this for TV value
10:34 What this whole drama really says about Texas Tech and the Big 12

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#TexasTech #Big12 #BrettYormark #CodyCampbell #JoeyMcGuire #CollegeFootball #Big12Football #TexasTechFootball #HoustonFootball #ConferenceRealignment

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The fireworks between Mega Donor Cody Campbell and Big Twelve Commissioner Brett Yormark have died down for now, at least. But should we trust that there will continue to be harmony? And what do we make of Joey McGuire, Texas Tech Head Coach, now entering this fray as well? All right, let's break it all down. Most of you, I would imagine, probably saw my video last week about the original beef between, you know, I call him Texas Tech Mega Booster. He's a lot of things. He's a multi-billionaire. He is a Texas Tech Mega Booster. He is in charge of saving college sports. He is a seemingly a friend of President Trump who has a lot of influence in DC trying to get some sort of legislation put in place to help college sports. He's got a lot of hats and a lot of titles, which will be very important in this story. And he was upset with Brett Yormark. Now, this is coming back from a wide saving college sports perspective into a Texas Tech sphere, right? We're talking about the Texas Tech Houston football game. I guess now technically still currently scheduled for Saturday, apparently moving to Friday. And Cody Campbell, not happy about that. Tech, not happy about that, which I do understand. But this all started with Cody Campbell tweeting about how brutal this is for Texas high school football and that Brett Yormark should know better. And you know, on and on and on. Brett Yormark then simply responded by saying Cody Campbell doesn't run the Big 12. Cody Campbell came back and in a very emphatic tweet said, I guess Brett didn't hear that everything runs through Lubbock. So that was the sparring match that we had there. Now, as far as the game goes, I tried to be very diplomatic here because I do understand, like, of course, Texas Tech's not going to like that. Nobody in the Big 12, I think, really likes playing a Friday night game. It's not ideal. Well, it may generate you a little bit of spotlight by being a standalone game. It's it makes it harder to recruit because you obviously can't bring recruits into a home game if you're playing on Friday night. It also hurts when you're trying to get alums to come to the game, right? Out-of-state alums, out-of-city alums, even like making that trip on a Friday becomes much more difficult. Texas Tech is playing on the road at Oregon State the week before, anticipating a late night game there. So they lose some prep time. These are all things that are not ideal, right? Missing out the businesses in Lubbock, that's even been mentioned too, or whoever's playing the Friday night game, your college town, you lose some of the business that you would pick up if the game were on Saturday and you were getting, you know, the whole the juice of an entire college football weekends squeeze. But you're not getting any of that. So I get why Texas Tech doesn't like this. I think my whole point was nobody likes it, and everybody agreed to it because everybody signed the TV deal that included these. It's no secret that this has been coming. So what happened here? We got some mixed messages because Cody Campbell backed off a bit, and Joey Maguire took his place and came in by talking about this. All right. Please subscribe to the channel, pushing toward 35k subs. Many of you watch, not all that many of you subscribe. It would help a lot if you just click one button. And I appreciate everybody who does that. Here's what Joey Maguire said. Now, to set the stage here, this was at a press conference. He's being asked about it. Um, Joey Maguire said the disappointing part that we're not taking into account is that we're going to put a lot on our fans to make sure that game is sold out. How much money are we losing in the city of Lubbock playing on Friday night? How many people are going to be at the Friendship Games, the Lubbock ISD games, Lubbock High, Lubbock Cooper? He's talking about all the high schools. If they're playing out of town and then just any of our alumni outside of this area. So he lays out a lot of the logistical issues there. Now, I will give him credit. I didn't read it in that specific quote, but Joey Maguire did also say, like, he prefaced it basically with like, look, I get it from a TV standpoint. Like, I understand why we do it, but I don't think we're considering XYZ enough. If this were all we had from Texas Tech in this, like I would have no real issue with it at all because Joey Maguire is different, not only in like stature and position than Cody Campbell, he also went about it a different way. And Joey Maguire has a vested interest in doing this and saying it this way. That guy not only is a former Texas high school coach, so he's a part of that fraternity and needs to stick up for his guys, his brothers, in that respect, but also he wants their players. Like he's trying to recruit Texas high school players. He's got to be the one to go out there and use his platform to say something about it. Like that makes all the sense to the world. He's got every right to do that. You know, Chris Kleiman said a little something about that when K-State, as a ranked team, by the way, had to play a fellow ranked team, Arizona, on a Friday night two years ago in Manhattan. He said the same thing about the high schools and how much of a bummer that was. Like the coach needs to say that, which I'm sure they believe it, but also because they need to recruit those players. Like they need to maintain those relationships. Those are important to them. It very much behooves them to do that. Different when Cody Campbell's tone was much different, first of all. Taking it to Twitter was much different. And he like specifically called out Brett Yormark. He's also, you know, I mean, you're talking about Texas Tech board member, you're talking about a guy nationally fighting to save college sport. Like there's just it's it's much more layered with uh Campbell and the way that he went about doing it. So that's why it that's why to me it was much more of a story. Like Joey McGuire saying that it's like, look, yeah, of course, that makes sense. Joey should do that. And when he's being asked about it at a press conference, he definitely should do that. Okay, but tweeting and coming straight after Brett Yormark, it's a little bit different. Now we've got, you know, we're we're playing a bit of a different game here. But uh Cody Campbell has walked this back a bit, all right? Uh for what it's worth. So let's go, let's go take a look at that. Uh Cody Campbell says, Points of clarification. I will reiterate, Friday nights are sacred in Texas, and high school football is an integral part of our culture. It's different here than in other states. Uh Texas Tech's alumni base is largely centered in the DFW area, which is 300 plus miles from Lubbock. Puts a lot of strain on them to attend the game. Tech plays a late. Here's the late game in Oregon prior Saturday. We're technically in the window. It's only by a few hours. Brett Yormark and I are friends and have a very good relationship. We work well together on many fronts, and tech is very committed to the Big 12. Brett and I have had our disagreements, but I like the guy and respect his hustle. However, I do stand by a quote I made. The commissioners work for the presidents and the presidents work for the boards. The commissioners have not been vested in unilateral authority to do whatever they want. This is an issue throughout college athletics. Yeah, for the most part, like I think this is fine. He's outlining the issues again. He's at least showing some contrition and being like, because part of the problem is when Cody Campbell goes out and just acts like a Twitter burner and goes after Bret Yormark, then all the actual burners are out there, like, just we're leaving the Big 12, this conference, the SEC, Yormark, F this. At least that's like bringing the tone back in a little bit, guys. Like, okay, like we can rein it in. Uh again, where are you gonna go, Texas Tech? You don't have a place to go. So let's just chill on the leaving the Big 12 stuff. Um, so I appreciate that he did that. I also will acknowledge like those points are all fair. I will just again say other Big 12 schools have to deal with those, have already had to deal with those, and will have to deal with those. This is playing your part when you sign the same TV deal that everybody else did. And then, you know, the last the last piece, all right, the commissioners work for the presidents and the presidents work for the boards. Well, okay, does Brett Yormark work for the Texas Tech Board of Regents, or does he work for all the boards of regents? Does he work for all the schools who signed this TV deal that says we will have to play 12 Friday night games? And so that's like a collaborative thing. That's not, he's not working specifically for Texas Tech. So again, I would still take some issue with that statement, but it's fine. Like, I don't think this is, I think when it when it hits Twitter and it becomes a thing where everybody's talking about it and it's a little, it has a tendency to get a bit sensationalized, and everybody gets emotional and in their feelings about it a bit. And this I at least respect and am happy with because it just it dialed back the temperature on it and the tone of it just a bit. Uh so you know, we would still, much like Cody Campbell saying, hey, Brett Yormark and I would disagree on some of this, Cody Campbell and I would disagree on some of this, but that's fine. Doesn't mean we couldn't have a reasonable conversation about it. And it doesn't mean that I don't think the Friday night games kind of suck too. Like, I get it. I mean, that Saturday is gonna be all about Ole Miss LSU, but outside of that, there there are not a ton of great games. It it would have been nice to have Texas Tech play that game on a Saturday. I wish every game was played on if if you gave me, let me just bring it back here. If you gave me my choice, I'd have every game played at 2 30 on Saturday, and Keith Jackson would clone himself, you know, however many different ways we need to, to have Keith, like Keith Jackson and Bob Greasy, whoever, uh doing the game at 2.30 on ABC. That would be every college football game. I if I could do that, if I could make a wave of magic wand and make that happen, I would do it. I can't. I cannot do that. Uh the Big 12 needs to be creative in generating TV money. That's Cody Campbell's whole push with saving college sports is to amend the Sports Broadcasting Act so everyone can make more TV money so that they can save Olympic and women's sports. This is on a smaller scale because the Big 12 can't pool its rights with the SEC and Big Ten right now, but what they can do is play some games on Friday, which will increase the value of the TV deal a bit. And so even the bigger brands have a responsibility to do that because everybody signed the deal. So that's that's my position on this. Uh I I just I think this has all been a little bit silly and everyone's a bit guilty in all corners of you know making it happen. It's also the off season, right? It's the college football off season. We got a long way to go until football starts, and so things like this are going to happen. Uh