Everything Texas Tech Head Coach Joey McGuire Said About West Virginia

See what the Red Raiders' head coach had to say about this weekend's matchup.

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The Texas Tech Red Raiders will be playing host to the West Virginia Mountaineers to close out the 2024 regular season on Saturday.

With a win, the Red Raiders would clinch the best regular season win total since 2009. Meanwhile, a win for WVU would clinch the best two-year stretch in Big 12 play since joining the league in 2012. The game may not have Big 12 title of College Football Playoff implications, but it's far from a meaningless game for both programs.

Earlier this week, Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire met with the media and discussed this week's matchup with West Virginia, including the keys to victory for this team. Below is everything McGuire had to say about WVU and this game.

Initial thoughts on West Virginia and the challenge the pose on offense

“This is a very good West Virginia team. They do a great job of running the football. You’re talking about two really good running backs, and they’ve got a really good quarterback that’s going to run the football. So we’ve got to do a good job of stopping the run, and I think that’s the key to the game on the defensive side of the ball.”

What Texas Tech will need to do versus West Virginia's defense

“We’re going to try to come out and really attack them. They do a really good job of controlling the ball as far as time of possession, so every possession is going to count. But we’re going to tempo and try to get to our playmakers.”

What the biggest key to the game is for the Texas Tech defense

“You’re going to get motion on almost every play, a lot of shifts. They might be in three-back and then burst to a spread formation. Number one, getting lined up, get our feet in the ground, and then it has to go back to two things - gap integrity and then tackling as a whole in space.”

What he sees out of the West Virginia defense

“They made a change at the defensive coordinator position a few weeks ago, but they’re still structurally still an odd defense. It’s really not an odd stack, it’s more of a true 3-4 defense. They play extremely hard. They did a really good job of stopping UCF who is really good at running the football, so they’ve done a good job against the run. We all know the key to our offense is getting Tahj going and he ends up making big plays. We’re going to have to attack them in the passing game. I think they play with a lot of energy. I think the change gave them some extra juice."

West Virginia and Texas Tech will kick things off at 12 p.m. EST with the action being televised on FS1.

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