Joey McGuire: Texas Tech has ‘work cut out for us’ vs. Arizona State RB Cam Skattebo

Texas Tech is 2-1 on the season after a 66-21 drubbing of North Texas last Saturday to close out the non-conference slate. The Red Raiders now turn their attention to Big 12 conference play where Arizona State will come into town for the first time since 2017.

Red Raiders head coach Joey McGuire was reinvigorated after Tech’s win and is excited to see them chase down the possibility of competing in the Big 12, something that will begin this weekend against the Sun Devils.

“We talked about it going into last week ... last week was our last dress rehearsal,” McGuire said. “For people to get into the Big 12 championship, for us to get the Big 12 championship, kind of all starts this week, you know, the chase to get in it.

“There’s gonna be a lot of teams in the fight to get into those playoffs and you gotta start by taking care of your conference play. This is a big week for both us and Arizona State.”

The old adage that the real season starts in conference play will hope to ring true for the Red Raiders, feeling refreshed after a big win over North Texas to shake the feeling of a miserable start to the season, going to overtime against Abilene Christian and losing big on the road against Washington State.

It will be about carrying momentum into Big 12 play throughout this week in practice, especially defensively where McGuire was embarrassed by the effort in the first two games, but it improved on Saturday.

“You know, I was, it’s one of those deals, man, when you create turnovers, you know, think we scored 21 points in 52 seconds,” McGuire said. “And that’s short fields, that’s defense playing really good football. And, you know, we’ve got to do that. We’ve got to build off of that.”

Defensively, the Red Raiders will face a massive challenge with the Sun Devils run game, led by running back Cam Skattebo and sprinkled by quarterback Sam Leavitt. Skattebo is coming off an AP Player of the Week nod in Week 2 for his 262-yard performance against Mississippi State. He has found the end zone five times in three games, as well.

“They’ve got running back that I think it’s one of the best in the country,” McGuire said. “Had a huge game against Mississippi State. So, I mean, just price of admission right there. ... It’s a great thing about the Big 12 that we have the best backs in the country in this conference, and you’ll get the two of the best go at each other with Tahj Brooks and Skattebo. I know he’s a bad man, we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

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