After Arsenal training sessions, reserve team players Jimi Gower, Lucas Martin Nygaard and Elián Quesada Thorn used to rush to make a 2 p.m. tee time at nearby Hertsmere Golf Club.

“I don’t want to sound cocky, but I won most of them,” Gower tells ESPN. Their last round was in early June. “All of our futures were up in the air and we knew it might be the last one for a while, but we didn’t know where we were going or what anyone was doing at the time.”

All three were at Arsenal together, dreaming of playing in the Premier League. Gower was on the bench for the first team three times, but never got on the pitch. With his contract up in June 2025, he was told the previous February that he wasn’t being offered a new deal.

He received interest from clubs in leagues below the Premier League, but he remembered one match for Arsenal’s under-21s against Leyton Orient where he stood in the middle of the pitch, feeling like he was the net in a game of pingpong. He’s a technical midfielder, the sort who wants the ball at his feet, not watching it fly over his head from one end of the pitch to the other.

For his next move, instead of dropping down in order to rise again, he wanted something different. He has the right support around him: his father, Mark Gower, is part of Liverpool‘s recruitment team. His uncle, Simon Francis, is technical director at AFC Bournemouth. Francis’ Cherries are part of the same Black Knight ownership group as Portugal Primeira Liga side Moreirense, and Francis mentioned them to Jimi. After a successful trial, he was handed a three-year contract.

Meanwhile, the other two in their three-ball headed overseas. Quesada Thorn, who has Costa Rican dual-nationality, signed for Alajuelense. Martin, a Danish goalkeeper, went back on loan to Brabrand IF.

All three young lads dreamt of breaking through at Arsenal, had options in the UK, but decided to go elsewhere.

“There’s a lack of opportunity in England for young players,” one agent said to ESPN. “Clubs would rather buy the finished article from abroad or foreign youth players. English youngsters are more expensive.”

Last summer, Gower was one of 26 homegrown British and Irish players who left clubs in the English and Scottish systems to head to one of the top leagues in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Portugal or the Netherlands. A previous trickle (on average, 3.05 players made such moves each year between 2000 and 2017) is increasingly becoming a stream of talent looking abroad (an average of 15.22 per year ever since), and for those already playing in leagues across Europe, they think it could soon become a flood.

The Chalobah and Sancho effect

Success stories of Brits heading abroad in the pre-Premier League era were few and far between, and moving into the 21st century, you could count the number of homegrown players leaving England or Scotland for a team abroad on one hand. We saw elite players join Real Madrid with David Beckham signing in 2003 and Gareth Bale a decade later, but those moves were the exceptions rather than the rule in an age when players tested the waters abroad but often came back within a season or two following mixed reviews.

If you wanted to play for England in a major tournament, unless your name was Beckham or Owen Hargreaves, you played in the Premier League.

But between 2015 and 2019, intrigue grew with options abroad, and from talking to agents, sporting directors, players, analysts, managers and family members, there are two names mentioned as trendsetters. The first was Nathaniel Chalobah and his loan move to Napoli from Chelsea in 2015. He played five times in Serie A and loved the experience.

“He’d been captain of the England under-17 team in 2010, and England under-19s, and that group all looked up to him. The players all spoke to him about the move, and heard how much it benefited him,” one source said. “He definitely matured as a result of that experience.”

The second lightning-bolt transfer was Jadon Sancho‘s move to Borussia Dortmund in 2017, when the German side signed him from Manchester City. Sancho excelled at Dortmund, where he played 147 times across four seasons, made his England debut and then signed for Manchester United in a deal worth £73 million in 2021.

“[Sancho] felt he had the ability, and he backed himself,” Neil Roberts, former head of youth player acquisition at Manchester City, told ESPN. “It was a good fit for both as for Dortmund it was almost like a pilot scheme, a test of what it’d be like to take a talent from England, as opposed to us taking from them. It also opened the floodgates for agents to broaden their horizons in terms of what’s available for players.”

The following summer, 16-year-old Noni Madueke joined PSV Eindhoven from Tottenham Hotspur. Others walked the walk, too: Keanan Bennetts, 19, went from Tottenham to Borussia Mönchengladbach; Reo Griffiths, 18, swapped Tottenham for Lyon; Jonathan Panzo, 17, joined AS Monaco from Chelsea.

“That high technical quality, high tactical quality, you look at the success they have at youth level now in England, they didn’t have that 10 years ago. So they’re developing a better product of player,” one source said. “But the elevation of the Premier League, the demands of the Premier League, the short-term nature and analysis of the Premier League, I think has created a glass ceiling for a better quality of talent they’re producing. And I think other leagues are looking at that and becoming more strategic and more business managed.”

When Jude Bellingham went from Birmingham City to Dortmund in 2020, the pathway was established. Jamie Gittens joined him there that summer, signing for the German club from Man City. Samuel Iling-Junior went from Chelsea to Juventus. Angel Gomes left Manchester United for Lille, Aaron Hickey joined Bologna. Since then, Bellingham has joined Real Madrid, Gomes is at Marseille (having made his England debut) while the others have returned to the Premier League on big transfers.

“Their stories all prove that you can go abroad, and not be ‘forgotten,'” said one recruiter. “All teams are scouting heavily through data and video scouting, especially since COVID, so you’re never far away from the eyes of the people who matter. You can go abroad, establish yourself as a first-team player and keep the door open on a return to a Premier League side. Your value stays high.”

Over the past two summers, the numbers of youngsters looking abroad have increased further. Those around the players say they have had their heads turned by proven success stories like Gomes, Madueke, Bellingham and Sancho.

“They’re looking at those guys and seeing how much they’re playing aged 17, 18, 19 or even 20 and thinking, ‘I don’t want to wait, to be honest,'” said one agent. But from speaking to the players who moved in the past couple of years, they all have concerns over the thinning pathway in the English system and have different reasons for looking abroad.

A broken system

Every summer, there are players aged between 18 and 21 who are reaching the end of their time at their boyhood club. It’s around this age when a player is either integrated into the first team, handed a new contract and dispatched on loan, transferred or released with best wishes.

In August 2022, Robbie Ure scored 10 minutes into his debut for his boyhood club Rangers, but by the following summer, he found himself at a crossroads. He knew he had to leave the club to progress, and when Anderlecht came calling with their RSCA Futures team, he headed to Belgium.

“I just felt like that I couldn’t really develop more at Rangers,” Ure, 21, tells ESPN. “I didn’t really want to go on loan in Scotland to a lower league so I looked elsewhere, and Anderlecht came calling. I got to stay in a massive club and they are known throughout Europe for developing young talent as well. I really wanted to put myself in an uncomfortable situation where I could grow. I saw the track record of some players who made similar moves, so it was a no-brainer.”

Ure moved from Anderlecht to Swedish Allsvenskan side Sirius in March.

“I’d been playing with the under-21s at Anderlecht and training a bit with the first team, but it was the right time to take the next step,” he said. He finished the season with 11 goals and four assists in 30 matches, the club’s second top scorer. He’s in no rush to head back to Scotland.

“When Sirius came for me, I had options to go back home, but I wanted the pressure of being first-choice striker. I know that clubs elsewhere have all the data, every club knows of what every player is doing. But this experience has made me physically a lot better but also I think I’m better at dealing with the pressure of being a regular starter. It taught me to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. I’m a lot stronger mentally now.”

In the summer of 2024, then-20-year-old Shola Shoretire was looking at his options. He’d made three substitute appearances for Man United and they had offered him a new deal, but he wanted a run of first-team football and took up an offer at PAOK Salonika in Greece.

“I had some good Championship clubs wanting to take me in on a permanent [transfer], but I just thought if I’m going to leave United, I might as well, like, go and take it a big step,” he says. “Not just for football, but for life and you know, that step into manhood. When PAOK in Greece sent over the proposal, it’s something that I liked and the next big step was then moving to Greece.”

He made 27 appearances in 2024-25 but wanted to play week in, week out. PAOK agreed, and Shoretire is currently on loan at PEC Zwolle in the Eredivisie, but players are becoming increasingly wary of the kind of short-term switch that Shoretire is currently experiencing.

“It’s literally like if you have a couple of bad games, that’s you done, you’re on the bench and you’re fighting in a new team to try and get back into the team,” Shoretire said. “It’s even harder to break through at your parent club when you’re stuck in a cycle of loans, loans, loans.”

That’s why permanent moves are becoming more and more popular. And with U21s having played an average of 19,790 minutes in top-flight leagues in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Portugal and the Netherlands so far this season, compared with 16,117 in the Premier League, it’s not hard to understand why.

Speaking to people in and around the game, they see two overarching reasons for this: football’s short-termism, and pressure. The teams in the Premier League have a reserve squad who play in an under-21 tournament called Premier League 2. It’s the last step of what they call “boys” football. Typically these promising youngsters would get an opportunity in “men’s” football either by making the uncommon breakthrough or going on loan to teams in the Championship and below, but promising young players have found these opportunities and minutes limited.

When a player goes on loan, usually the parent club puts in a series of clauses governing expectations over playing time. If these aren’t met, the club taking the player on loan can be hit with a financial penalty or the loan can be canceled. But for those who have dealt with Premier League clubs, they feel the loan market is becoming far less appealing than it used to be for Championship clubs. The spending power of England’s second division is greater than ever before, and the competitiveness means managers are less likely to take risks on young players.

“I think [managers] are reluctant to give young players a shot even in the Championship, because of the fear of getting sacked,” a sporting director said. “There’s no time to waste. If you’re a promotion hopeful, you’ve probably got 10 teams with financial capability of spending big on transfers and salaries. There’s reluctance to give a young player their first opportunity at the risk of their results.”

A smaller world

In late August, England’s U16s played their Italian counterparts in a doubleheader in Rome. In the stands were agents and scouts, alongside family members and a handful of fans. Italy won 2-1 in the first meeting, and England returned the 2-1 favor a couple of days later.

After the matches, the players mingled.

“I was so surprised at how they all knew each other, talking to each other like old mates,” said one agent in attendance. “But then they explained they’d been chatting on social media, checking out each other’s profiles. So these moves a couple of years later are far less daunting than they used to be.”

Social media has made the world a lot smaller, but also claustrophobic for certain players.

“You’re being liked for what you can get people,” said one expert in player care. “And I think that’s a massive epidemic in loneliness in football because they might have millions of followers, but those millions of people want something from them.

“Also these millions tell you what they think of you. You used to buy the local paper to read what was being said [about you], but now, it’s like having thousands of people shouting at you on the street.”

When you’re living in a place where you don’t speak the language, it doesn’t matter how many column inches are devoted to your struggles or how many social-media followers are fawning over your match-winning performance. The energy that may have been devoted to filtering out that noise back home can now be put into developing — either on the field or personally.

There’s seen to be low risk for both clubs involved in these kinds of transactions. For those letting the player go, often, they’ll insert a clause allowing the player to return for a set fee, or another seeing them get a portion of profit from any future transfer. For the club signing the player, if they’re bringing in someone from the English or Scottish game, they know they’re getting an “intelligent player, brought up in a decent system,” according to one agent.

“I think a lot of the foreign teams see [young British and Irish players] as being a market opportunity. They can take a young player and develop them, and then transfer them at like 22, 23, 24,” a sporting director said. “There’s no way they could afford that type of player at that stage of their career if they’d been one of the few to develop in the Premier League, they just couldn’t afford his salary. Instead, they can give him three to four years of exposure, game time in European competition, in Champions League, heighten his market value and create a sustainable model.”

The future

Expect to see more players heading abroad in the coming transfer windows and in greater numbers. Agents and sporting directors find their players look to the Bundesliga as still the number one choice, with the Belgian Pro League, Ligue 1, the Danish Superliga and the Eredivisie also seen as desirable destinations.

There are plenty of examples of young, talented homegrown players excelling abroad this season. And they’ll be talking to their pals back home. As the January transfer window beckons and British clubs are looking to for a midseason injection of talent, you’ll see plenty of names cropping up who have left the British Isles behind — not to mention more homegrown talents looking abroad for greater opportunities.

“I think in the next coming years I think we’ll see more English players going abroad,” Shoretire says. He, Gower and others all know this, but for the time being, they’re loving being among the first to take the plunge.

“The boys have to mature so much quicker overseas than probably they do over in England,” one agent said. “The combination of minutes played, a different culture, a new environment and the challenge offered make it a no-brainer. Our advice is always, if it’s the right club at the right time, we take them abroad.”

Gower still chats to his old golf buddies. They hope to play another round in the summer once they’re back from all corners of the world. They’ll have some stories to tell of their careers abroad.

“It’s crazy where football can take you,” he says. “It does open your eyes that there’s a lot more places that you can play football than just in England. There are so many places and so many opportunities out there to play.”

LUBBOCK, Texas — Joey McGuire walked out of the private jet terminal in Waco, Texas, sat down in his car and pulled out his phone.

His wife, Debbie, was at home on that Sunday in November 2021. Their children, Raegan and Garret, were living in New York City and Charlotte, respectively. So he dialed up a video call for his family.

He saw their smiling faces and paused, trying to find the words.

“Well, you’re looking at the next…”

“He didn’t even get it out,” Debbie said, “before we were all screaming like, ‘Oh my god!'”

Four years ago today this family’s dream came true ❤️ pic.twitter.com/qw44J5pEgs

— Raegan McGuire Tocco (@Raeganmcg) November 8, 2025

The next head coach of the Texas Tech Red Raiders had been a true underdog candidate at the start of the search process. To folks outside the Lone Star State, he was a relative unknown.

This wasn’t how these searches normally go. A longtime high school football coach with no college head coaching, coordinator or playcalling experience almost never gets to make the leap to the big job.

This particular candidate turned down a college head coaching opportunity in 2019 and spent the next two years living with regret, not knowing when he’d get another shot. But here’s the thing about McGuire, according to anyone who knows him well:

If you get Joey McGuire in the room, he’s going to get the job.

Texas Tech interviewed two sitting head coaches in Jeff Traylor and Sonny Dykes. Some powerful people wanted Mike Leach or Art Briles. Tech officials visited with prominent alumni and coordinators on the rise, including future Texas A&M coach Mike Elko.

But after one sit-down with the magnetic McGuire, the members of Texas Tech’s search committee were undeniably smitten.

“I’ll never forget when it ended and he walked out, we were all like, ‘We found our guy,'” former deputy AD Tony Hernandez said.

Four years and one month later, inside AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the McGuire clan was back together wiping away tears and confetti as they celebrated Texas Tech’s first-ever Big 12 championship.

As the Red Raiders prepare for the next biggest game in school history, a Capital One Orange Bowl CFP quarterfinal against No. 5 Oregon on New Year’s Day (12 p.m. ET, ESPN), McGuire continues to prove he was the perfect hire for fixing Texas Tech football.

“It’s absolutely crazy,” McGuire said. “We knew this was a good job, but who would imagine this?”

TEXAS TECH COULDN’T afford to get this hire wrong.

In the summer of 2021, the Red Raiders experienced an existential crisis. Texas and Oklahoma leaving the Big 12 put the league in peril, with serious fears about its financial and competitive future. Texas Tech leaders explored a move to the Pac-12 and were met with rejection. More rounds of realignment were imminent.

This was no time to be mediocre in football, and Texas Tech had the third-worst record in the Big 12 over the previous decade at 60-65.

Athletic director Kirby Hocutt and billionaire donor Cody Campbell had not been on good terms for more than a year. Campbell was not a fan of football coach Matt Wells and wasn’t shy about saying so. When Campbell was appointed to Texas Tech’s board of regents in the spring of 2021, he and Hocutt met and buried the hatchet.

“I said, ‘I’m not here to fire you. I’m here to work with you,'” Campbell said. “That’s my purpose, to make this place great. As long as that’s his goal too, we’re going to be just fine.”

“You’re always going to know where you stand with Cody,” Hocutt said. “He’s going to be very direct, which I appreciate. For Cody, it has always been about Texas Tech and it has all been about winning.”

Hocutt and Campbell rebuilt trust that summer while working closely together on realignment, NIL and stadium renovation plans. When it was time to pull the plug on the Wells era that fall, amid a 13-17 record in three years, Hocutt brought Campbell and fellow regent Dusty Womble into his search committee alongside Hernandez and football staffer Sammy Morris. It was a critical moment for Texas Tech to reset and achieve alignment with a hire that unified the fan base.

“We’ve got to get this right,” Hocutt said after firing Wells. “Bottom line, we have got to get this right.”

McGuire, a Baylor assistant at the time, was not at the top of the list when their work began on Oct. 25, 2021. The committee started with UTSA’s Jeff Traylor, arguably the hottest coaching candidate in the state. The Roadrunners were 8-0 and in the AP Top 25 for the first time in school history under their second-year coach. The East Texan possessed an appealing background for the Tech job as a respected former Texas high school football coach at Gilmer High School, where he won three state titles, who’d gained Power 5 experience working at Texas and Arkansas.

Texas Tech’s search committee sat down with Traylor in San Antonio soon after the job opened and were sold. But they made an unusual request: They wanted Traylor to get started immediately.

“For us, it was important that we didn’t lose a year,” Hocutt said. “We couldn’t lose a year of recruiting, couldn’t lose a year of letting your kids transfer out without an effort to keep them at Texas Tech. Timing was important.”

Had UTSA already lost a game or two, perhaps it would have changed everything. But the Roadrunners were undefeated and chasing a New Year’s Six bowl. Traylor couldn’t bring himself to bail on his players and ruin their season. He chose to lock in a 10-year deal to stay at UTSA, a decision that Campbell and Hocutt respected.

So Texas Tech officials sat down with SMU’s Sonny Dykes at his home in Dallas.

Dykes, the son of legendary Red Raiders coach Spike Dykes, had been passed up for the Tech job several times. In a tough bit of timing, he’d accepted the Cal job in 2012 just three days before Tommy Tuberville left Lubbock. When Dykes was at SMU for the 2021 season, the Mustangs had started 7-0, but an uncertain future in conference realignment made it tough to stay. TCU fired longtime coach Gary Patterson and the Horned Frogs job opened one week after Tech’s did. Dykes eventually chose the Horned Frogs.

What about Mike Leach? The winningest coach in Texas Tech history was winning once again at Mississippi State. Campbell believes Leach did have interest in coming back, but he said it was a “nonstarter” with some board members who still harbored hard feelings about Leach’s tenure.

“Leach was a little bit polarizing for the fan base,” Hernandez said. “Some people would’ve been completely on board and others wouldn’t have. It would’ve been a difficult hire that would not have unified the fan base, in my opinion.”

Texas Tech sources told ESPN that a few influential voices also wanted the school to seriously consider Art Briles, the former Baylor coach who’d been exiled from college football since 2015 following the school’s sexual assault scandal. Hernandez said they never contemplated meeting with Art or his son Kendal Briles.

Texas Tech interviewed two alums in USC offensive coordinator Graham Harrell and Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn. The committee visited with Oklahoma defensive coordinator Alex Grinch. And the final candidate they met with during the search process was Mike Elko, the then-defensive coordinator at Texas A&M who, this season, led the Aggies to the College Football Playoff as head coach.

So why in the world did they go with McGuire?

TEXAS TECH’S SEARCH party sat down around a conference table at Waco’s private jet terminal. McGuire had hustled to secure this first meeting. He’d chosen to forgo formalities and cold-called Hocutt, leaving a voicemail and asking for an interview.

“He said, ‘Kirby, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t make this call. I need to be the next head football coach at Texas Tech,'” Hocutt recalled.

McGuire had called Traylor, a close friend with whom he shares an agent, to find out more about the committee. Then he’d called Campbell directly, too, to pitch himself. High school football coaches, Texas Tech alumni and even then-Carolina Panthers coach Matt Rhule kept calling to vouch for McGuire.

“I called Cody and said, ‘Hey listen, I’m telling you, I know there’s guys out there who are Red Raiders that could say they want this job more than me. They don’t. I’m just telling you,'” McGuire said.

McGuire had turned down the UTSA job late in the 2019 season, going against the advice of his agents and even Rhule. He was ready to be a head coach. But he believed Rhule might move on to the NFL after leading Baylor to the Big 12 title game in 2019. McGuire, Baylor’s associate head coach and defensive ends coach, hoped to be next in line as Bears coach.

McGuire asked Baylor AD Mack Rhoades the critical question: If he took the UTSA job and Rhule left, would he still get an interview at Baylor? Rhoades had previously worked with UTSA AD Lisa Campos and said he couldn’t do that to her. So McGuire bet on himself and lost. UTSA hired Traylor. And Rhoades went for a splashier hire with Dave Aranda, who had just won a national championship as DC at LSU. McGuire still remembers getting the call from Rhoades at 10:26 a.m.

“Let me tell you, man, I was about as low as low can get when I didn’t get Baylor,” he said. “That was really tough.”

McGuire feared he’d ruined his chance and might not get another. He talked with Lincoln Riley about a job at Oklahoma but ultimately agreed to stay in Waco under Aranda as associate head coach and outside linebackers coach. The 2020 season was rough in every way. The Bears went 2-7 in a COVID-shortened slate.

McGuire entered 2021 hoping he might get a shot at an in-state coaching job. When Texas Tech opened, he went full-court press. James Blanchard, the Baylor staffer who had become McGuire’s general manager at Texas Tech, was skeptical of McGuire’s chances.

“I was like, there’s no way. Why would they?” he said. “I thought he was going to have to go to North Texas or Texas State and prove himself first. I didn’t believe it was going to happen. I’d be lying if I said I did.”

McGuire had been coaching in college for only five years after his 14-year run as head coach at Cedar Hill High School, where he had won three state titles. McGuire wasn’t a coordinator. He wasn’t a playcaller. The lack of college experience would make any AD hesitant.

But no other candidate could match McGuire’s enthusiasm. His daughter, Raegan, went to Tech. So did his sister and two brothers-in-law. He had a best friend who played for Dykes and a nephew who played for Kliff Kingsbury. Even his dog, Charlie, was born in Lubbock.

McGuire believed all that history would help. One day after the search began, he told ESPN he was hopeful he would at least get an interview.

“You know what’s crazy? This is going to sound totally crazy, but my two friggin’ jobs that I love the most in the state are the one that I didn’t get [at Baylor] and Tech,” McGuire said at the time. “I think the reason I do is because it’s different. You’re going to do everything different at places like that, you know?”

When he finally got in the room with Texas Tech leadership, he had a seven-step plan for winning. He brought the full list of coaches he would like to hire. He had a detailed plan for fixing in-state recruiting and spoke of waking a sleeping giant. When he told them he would build the “toughest, hardest-working, most competitive team in the country,” Texas Tech president Lawrence Schovanec lit up and replied, “That is West Texas.”

“At the end of the day, you can put it on a whiteboard and do all the pros and cons,” Campbell said, “but it comes down to a subjective gut kind of decision. It was just clear that he was our guy.”

Hocutt and Hernandez flew back to Waco the following Sunday for one more meeting with McGuire and asked him to bring his wife. When Debbie exited her portion of the meeting, down a spiral staircase, she made sure to yell “WRECK EM!” on her way out. The AD loved that.

“Kirby and I like to joke that I was the closer,” Debbie said with a laugh.

McGuire got the job. Now he needed to make his most important hire.

THE PRIVATE JET was ready. McGuire was set to fly to Lubbock for his grand introduction. There was just one issue: Blanchard had gone missing.

“You’re fixin’ to make a billionaire late, bro!” McGuire told him over the phone.

The first hire of the McGuire era nearly fell through. After accepting the Texas Tech job, McGuire met with Aranda and said he wouldn’t take any coaches with him. He didn’t wish to disrupt a Baylor team that was 7-2 and chasing a Big 12 title. But he was bringing Blanchard, Baylor’s assistant AD for scouting, to lead his recruitment department.

“Aranda agrees, ‘OK, you can have him,'” Blanchard said. “And then he immediately calls me and says, ‘Hey, look, we’ll give you this if you stay. Don’t get on the plane with Joey.'”

Blanchard was genuinely torn. He was making $170,000 a year. McGuire had offered him $185,000. Now Aranda was offering to bump him up to $200,000. This was life-changing money to his family, and he went back and forth about staying or going.

Thirty minutes before he was set to fly out with McGuire, Blanchard still hadn’t decided. He called Rhule and asked what he would do.

“He’s like, ‘Man, I don’t know the answer to this for you. But whoever you believe would make sure your wife doesn’t lose the house if you die, go work for them,'” Blanchard said. “If I die tomorrow, and my wife can’t pay the bills, who would make sure my wife and kids keep the house?

“I was like, ‘F—, that’s Joey. I gotta go pack a bag.'”

Getting McGuire hired and on campus by Nov. 9 created some uncommon advantages. He and Blanchard had time to evaluate their roster over Tech’s final four games while interim coach Sonny Cumbie led the program. The new head coach held one-on-one meetings with every player in the program. He worked early mornings and late nights assembling his coaching staff and recruiting class.

“What was awesome is everybody in that building got to see the beautiful mind of James Blanchard,” McGuire said. “The dude is constantly on the phone. He never stops. We were in there recruiting our butts off.”

The fact that McGuire and Blanchard had to make every decision together from Day 1 established a powerful foundation that now has the Red Raiders in the hunt for the national championship. Blanchard enjoys more trust and autonomy in his recruiting operation than arguably any other GM in college football. It’s one of the biggest reasons why he hasn’t left.

Blanchard has turned down several high-profile GM opportunities in recent years and just inked a new three-year extension for $2.25 million. He now chuckles at how little money he was stressing over four years ago as he debated leaving Waco.

“Never saw all this coming,” Blanchard said. “I thought we were going to go compete for Big 12 championships, put kids in the NFL and see what happens. We were going to recruit top-25 classes and build it up to where, in Year 3 or 4, we’re competing for the Big 12 championship.

“It just became way bigger than that.”

TEXAS TECH INVESTED more than $25 million to build this year’s team. Their leadership never pretended that they didn’t.

They’ve been honest about their all-in shove for 2025 all along and unusually transparent about their spending. They saw opportunity and capitalized. But because they did, Texas Tech players believe their head coach isn’t getting enough credit for what he has accomplished this year.

“Coach McGuire, he’s different,” defensive end Romello Height said. “His energy is different. He’s why we are where we are right now. It’s not about money. It can be very dysfunctional if your team doesn’t have a bond.”

Texas Tech nailed its evaluations as it put together this loaded squad. The Red Raiders landed seven transfers who would become All-Big 12 performers and built arguably the top defensive line in the sport. The million-dollar free agents they bet on all paid off this season.

McGuire aced his coaching hires, too. First-year DC Shiel Wood is a Broyles Award finalist. New OC Mack Leftwich built the No. 2 scoring offense in FBS at 42.5 points per game. The duo came in this offseason with a combined two years of Power 4 coaching experience but proved to be perfect fits for taking the next big step as a program.

In 2025, though, winning isn’t just about good hires and recruits. Relationships and retention matter in this increasingly transactional era. Campbell believes McGuire’s high school mentality and genuine father-figure-type approach with players are invaluable ingredients in the Red Raiders’ rise.

“From Day 1, it was all about we can win because we’ve got good players, but that’s not why we’re going to win,” said special teams coordinator Kenny Perry, a fellow longtime high school coach. “We’re going to win because the culture’s right and that locker room is right.”

McGuire took on that assignment himself, confiding in Perry that he’d need to be more of a culture coach than ever to glue everything together. The process began with weekly breakfasts between blended groups of new and returning players in the offseason. Defensive tackle Lee Hunter said those meals helped him get to know his new brothers and learn their “why.” They built on those bonds over basketball, billiards, haircuts and hanging out at McGuire’s house.

“Love is our competitive advantage,” Rodriguez said. “How much we love each other, that’s how much harder we’re willing to play. We want it to show up every Saturday. These guys are flying around together. What’s in the water over there? It’s really just how much we care about each other.”

The right football coach, the guy everyone can get behind, helped create institutional alignment and momentum unlike anything Hocutt has experienced. From the board of regents to the chancellor and president to the AD to the major donors and stakeholders down to the coaches, they’ve never been this unified before.

“I think it doesn’t happen without Joey,” Hocutt said.

The state-of-the-art $242 million Womble Football Center and the substantial NIL war chest were proof enough, but they view this first playoff run as just the beginning. And from where McGuire’s sitting today, in his luxury corner office overlooking Jones AT&T Stadium, there’s not a better job in America.

Texas Tech rewarded McGuire with a new seven-year contract earlier this month worth more than $51.9 million, plus incentives. After the deal was done, he called Campbell to express his gratitude.

“You know, you didn’t even have to do this,” McGuire told him. “I’m never leaving.”

Without new rules to stop teams from adding players with professional experience to their rosters, the value of American high school players will rapidly decrease, John Calipari said in a postgame rant about the state of the sport Monday night.

In a six-minute response about college basketball, days after Baylor announced the addition of former NBA draft pick James Nnaji to its roster, Calipari said the sport’s youngest talents will suffer if players who’ve played professionally — domestically or internationally — are allowed to compete.

“Does anybody care what this is doing for 17- and 18-year-old American kids? Do you know what this opportunity has done for them and their families? There aren’t going to be any high school kids,” Calipari said after Arkansas’ 103-74 win over James Madison. “Who other than dumb people like me are going to recruit high school kids? I get so much satisfaction out of coaching young kids and seeing them grow and make it — and their family and life changes — that I’m going to keep doing it. But why would anybody else, if you can get NBA players, G League players, guys that are 28 years old, guys from Europe? Do we really know their transcript? Do we have somebody over there? Do we really know their birth certificate or don’t we?

“We’ve got no rules.”

Both Louisville (London Johnson) and Santa Clara (Thierry Darlan) recently signed players with G League experience to their rosters, but Nnaji — a 7-foot center who played professional overseas after he was drafted 31st in the 2023 NBA draft — is the first drafted player to get cleared to play by the NCAA.

While Scott Drew defended his decision to add Nnaji and said he’s “happy” he was allowed to play, UConn’s Dan Hurley, Gonzaga’s Mark Few and Michigan State’s Tom Izzo were all critical of the rules that allowed it to happen.

“Now we’re taking guys that were drafted in the NBA,” Izzo said. “If that’s what we’re going to do, shame on the NCAA. Shame on the coaches, too. But shame on the NCAA. Because coaches are going to do what they’ve got to do, I guess.”

Calipari expounded on those sentiments Monday. He listed a set of proposed rules that he believes could stabilize the sport, including four years of eligibility in a five-year window for every athlete and the elimination of all midseason additions.

“This is an easy one. We can do this, NCAA,” he said. “Don’t tell me about lawsuits. If you join a program at midseason, you cannot play that season.”

Calipari said he would make an exception for students who weren’t academically eligible during the first semester but were in good standing to compete in the second semester. He did not, however, offer any exceptions for players who’ve entered the NBA draft, saying all players in that situation should be banned.

“Real simple. The rules be the rules, so if you put your name in the [NBA draft], I don’t care if you’re from Russia and you stay in the draft, you can’t play college basketball,” Calipari said. “‘Well, that’s only for American kids.’ What? If your name is in that draft and you got drafted, you can’t play because that’s our rule.”

NCAA president Charlie Baker posted a statement on social media Tuesday addressing the eligibility issue, saying in part, “The NCAA has not and will not grant eligibility to any prospective or returning student-athletes who have signed an NBA contract (including a two-way contract). As schools are increasingly recruiting individuals with international league experience, the NCAA is exercising discretion in applying the actual and necessary expenses bylaw to ensure that prospective student-athletes with experience in American basketball leagues are not at a disadvantage compared to their international counterparts.”

Baker added that he’d be working with “DI leaders in the weeks ahead to protect college basketball” after “recent outlier decisions” over eligibility.

It’s unclear what else the NCAA will allow in the near future with regard to players with professional experience as it seeks Congressional intervention to fix the landscape. But Calipari said the stakeholders within college basketball should act now to preserve its future.

“How about we just do that stuff?” he said. “We can do it without having Congress and the Senate getting 60 votes.”