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Max Olson
THE GOAL GOING into December was to spend $5 million.
That was the price tag that Cody Campbell, Texas Tech‘s billionaire booster and the leader of The Matador Club NIL collective, initially anticipated for the Red Raiders’ transfer portal haul. In college football’s constantly evolving world of transfer recruiting, that’s still considered a lot of money.
In late November, Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire told reporters he was bringing in approximately 10 transfers for next season. McGuire, Campbell and general manager James Blanchard had spent months preparing for the Dec. 9 start of portal season. They had an ambitious plan. And then the plan worked a little too well.
The quality of players hitting the market — proven starters, potential all-conference performers, real NFL prospects — who were willing to listen to Texas Tech’s pitch exceeded expectations. So, why stop at 10? This trio wholeheartedly believed the Red Raiders had just come up a few plays — and players — short of the first Big 12 championship game in school history, finishing one game behind the teams tied for first place. This was their moment to take a big swing.
“I talked with Cody and Coach McGuire,” Blanchard said, “and Coach was like, ‘Man, if they can help us win the Big 12, let’s just go ahead and go all-in. Let’s do it.'”
Texas Tech brought in 17 new players in December, including seven of the top 75 players in ESPN’s transfers rankings, good enough for the No. 2 ranked portal class in early January. And nobody outside of Lubbock, Texas, saw it coming.
The total cost of the splurge? More than $10 million.
Texas Tech didn’t pull off its stunning portal shopping spree purely by outspending its competition. It’s never that simple. Five months of careful planning and 10 days of relentless recruiting went into putting it all together. And once the portal opened, they went on a hot streak.
“We started hitting home run after home run,” McGuire said.
Texas Tech’s portal class was impressive enough that Notre Dame, fresh off playing for a national championship, tried to hire Blanchard as its next general manager. He’s staying in Lubbock because he knows this upcoming season could be special.
Internally, everyone at Texas Tech agrees on what this haul means: The Red Raiders have acquired enough talent to become a genuine College Football Playoff contender in 2025. They’re not just hoping to secure the program’s first outright conference title in 70 years — they’re expecting it.
“We’re pushing all our chips in,” McGuire said.
IF YOU’RE LOOKING for Blanchard, McGuire says, you probably won’t find him in his office. He’s usually in the war room.
The office of Texas Tech’s director of scouting, Sean Kenney, has turned into the space where the recruiting staff gathers. The whiteboard is covered with the names of all their players and prospects on magnets. Together, they spent the 2024 season knocking out film evaluations and grades on pretty much everyone who had remaining eligibility and fit their needs.
The Red Raiders had to replace departing senior starters at running back, wide receiver and tight end. They needed to upgrade at offensive tackle and defensive tackle. An impact edge rusher was a must. And they had to get better in the secondary after finishing with the worst pass defense in FBS this season.
Blanchard says 90% of the work is collecting information. He puts a big emphasis on feedback from pro football scouting contacts and closely monitors every player who has NFL draft grades going into the season.
“You might watch tape and be like, ‘The NFL likes this guy? I don’t really like him.’ Listen, they got way more information than we do,” Blanchard said. “So, take the ego out of it. If the NFL is saying this guy is a sixth- or seventh-round draft pick … let’s lean towards the guys who do this all the time and let’s have an advantage.”
In an effort to identify veteran players who might slip through the cracks, the staff kept a spreadsheet of senior prospects and crossed off names as each player surpassed four games played (the threshold for burning or saving a year of eligibility). Two of the top five players left on their FCS list were Illinois State offensive lineman Hunter Zambrano and North Dakota State safety Cole Wisniewski. Both were preseason All-Americans who went down with season-ending injuries. Now they’re both Red Raiders.
Sometimes, the sleepers don’t stay quiet. Blanchard had two favorites at the top of his list of edge rushers: Georgia Tech’s Romello Height and Marshall’s Mike Green. When Green put together a breakout season and led FBS with 17 sacks, Blanchard took him off the board. There was no way he was hitting the portal. Now, Green is a potential NFL first-rounder.
McGuire chuckles as he recalls turning on tape of Miami (Ohio) offensive tackle Will Jados and watching him roll his hips and pancake a Notre Dame defensive linemen. “I literally paused it after the first play and went down to [offensive line coach] Clay McGuire and said, ‘Dude, I’m gonna love this guy!'” Blanchard felt the same way when he turned on Zambrano’s tape against Iowa and Northern Illinois defensive tackle Skyler Gill-Howard‘s tape against Notre Dame. There was still more homework to be done, but it didn’t take much film to develop strong feelings.
They spent plenty of time, too, identifying Texas natives who could potentially look to come home. North Carolina offensive tackle Howard Sampson, Louisiana tight end Terrance Carter and USC running back Quinten Joyner quickly climbed their board as priority targets if those players entered the portal.
“I’d say 85% of it was a waste of time,” Blanchard said, “because most of ’em stayed or some went to the draft. But that 15% that wasn’t a waste of time? Man, we executed on it. We were proactive. We already had grades on guys and already had everything we needed done.
“There’s maybe a surprise here or there, but come December, we’ve been talking about these guys for what felt like five to six months.”
Blanchard admits there were some nerves and jitters as December neared and it was time to compete. But he felt fully prepared for what he calls the “beautiful chaos” of sorting through thousands of available players, making calls and offers, scheduling official visits and negotiating with agents.
“It’s chaotic, but I’m a psychopath for it,” he added. “To me, it’s becoming the most exciting event of the college football season for personnel people. National Signing Day used to be our Super Bowl. Not anymore. The portal window is now, and I love it.”
At the start, Campbell said he’d be disappointed if Texas Tech didn’t end up with a top-five portal class. Blanchard was focused on No. 1.
“I don’t think they understood how aggressive we were going to be,” Maguire said.
CAMPBELL SAW THE upcoming opportunity as far back as last summer.
The NCAA and the Power 5 conferences agreed in May to the $2.8 billion House settlement, bringing on the era of revenue sharing in college athletics. Campbell began consulting with countless attorneys and general counsel in July to fully understand the short- and long-term legal circumstances of the imminent shift to schools directly paying players.
“A few people caught on later,” Campbell said, “but nobody was ahead of the curve like we were in terms of planning for it.”
The settlement, which still requires final approval, will allow schools to distribute up to $20.5 million to athletes for the 2025-26 school year starting on July 1. Campbell knew The Matador Club, Texas Tech’s NIL collective since 2022, would still be on the hook for funding the football roster from January through June before the athletic department took on that responsibility — and, more importantly, before the new cap was established.
While schools spent the fall semester scrambling to figure out the unprecedented changes to their financial model, Campbell saw a way for his alma mater to capitalize on the uncertainty. He recognized all the way back in August that Texas Tech should be aggressive in the December portal market and offer front-loaded deals that paid big bucks in the spring and summer before the cap kicked in.
“We had a meeting early in the football season,” McGuire said, “and he said, ‘Look, there’s a part here that we can really take advantage of.'”
Finding an edge in recruiting has historically been a challenge for Texas Tech. The program has a 94-93 record in the post-Mike Leach era since 2010 and hasn’t achieved a top-25 finish in the AP poll since the legendary coach’s firing. But Texas Tech has dramatically upgraded its athletic facilities over the past three years, investing more than $240 million into renovating Jones AT&T Stadium and its football training center.
Four of Texas Tech’s five All-Big 12 performers in 2024 had joined the program as transfers. By the end of the season, they knew they needed more. They’d made solid progress in McGuire’s third year, winning six Big 12 games for the first time since 2008. Texas Tech was the only team in the conference that defeated Arizona State and Iowa State, the two teams that met in Arlington for the Big 12 title. While Baylor delivered a humbling 59-35 blowout, every other league game was within reach. The two losses that knocked them out of the Big 12 race were both one-score games in the final minute.
On his private jet back to Fort Worth following a 41-27 loss to Colorado on Nov. 9, Campbell posted on X about his frustration with “awful” officiating. He received a trolling response telling him to “buy us an O-line.”
His reply: “I will.”
An 8-5 finish was far from awful, but McGuire said he felt like a “complete failure” by season’s end.
“I felt guilty coming into this office, like I’m not doing my job,” McGuire said. “So you want it so bad to get over the hump.
“How do you do that? You get better players.”
WHEN MIAMI (OHIO) transfer wide receiver Reggie Virgil arrived for his official visit to Texas Tech, he’d already lined up his next visits to Oklahoma, Florida and Florida State.
Coaches were calling non-stop during his time in Lubbock and urgently texting promises of $700,000, then $900,000, then Lamborghinis and Corvettes. Virgil was wowed at first but said the offers ultimately didn’t sway him. He’d seen enough to shut down his recruitment. Texas Tech had the No. 1 wideout on their board.
“I went to Tech and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m not going anywhere else,'” Virgil said. “It was literally too perfect.”
Blanchard, McGuire and their staff developed a clear objective: If they could get a guy on campus, don’t let him leave without committing.
UCF transfer Lee Hunter, their top priority at defensive tackle, was supposed to go see Texas next. No way Blanchard was going to let that happen.
“When we get this guy on campus and we believe he’s the best at this or that, we’re not letting him leave,” Blanchard said.
“James knows what he wants,” an agent who represented a Texas Tech signee told ESPN. “His sights were set. The number reflected that. They’re willing to roll the dice for what they want.”
Virgil was one of eight commits on board after the first week of portal recruiting. And then Texas Tech got everybody’s attention when Hunter, Terrance Carter, Howard Sampson, Romello Height and Quinten Joyner all committed within a span of three days.
“Once people saw us committing,” Virgil said, “I’m pretty sure they were like, ‘Wait, man. What’s going on in Lubbock? Why are all these kids trying to go to Tech?'”
Virgil said it wasn’t the dollar figure. The All-MAC wide receiver went in knowing next to nothing about Texas Tech but liked the coaches and offensive fit. When he showed up, he was immediately blown away by the Red Raiders’ resources.
McGuire showed off their recently completed, state-of-the-art Womble Football Center, a $242 million training facility that he proudly calls the best in the country. For a player from a Group of 5 school eager to level up his development ahead of his final season, the amenities were eye-opening.
“I couldn’t even wrap my mind around it,” Virgil said. “They’ve got everything I need for the NFL. I’m coming here to play football. I ain’t coming here to be a diva and request all this money. I’m coming here for my dream, and I think these guys can help me with my dream. That was good enough for me.”
“All these kids, all they’ve heard is, ‘Don’t go to Lubbock. It’s just tumbleweeds and cactus out there,'” Campbell said. “And then they show up and they’re like, ‘Oh my god, this place is actually really nice.'”
McGuire said he didn’t speak with a single agent during the process, leaving the financial discussions to Blanchard and The Matador Club. His assistant coaches stay out of them, too. He knows getting involved can change the relationship between coach and player. He focused his energy on selling the program, the facilities, the staff, and the experience.
Sampson, a massive 6-foot-8, 325-pound tackle from Houston with early-round draft pick potential, was the one who made the staff sweat the most. McGuire got an assist from a close friend in former North Carolina coach Mack Brown, with whom he got on a FaceTime call while he was with Sampson and his family. Texas Tech beat LSU, Alabama and Missouri for his signature.
“From an old-school recruiting standpoint, there’s nobody that’s better than Joey,” Campbell said. “He’s just phenomenal. And if he’s competing on a level playing field, he’s unstoppable.”
In the end, Sampson was their No. 1 offensive tackle. Hunter was their No. 1 defensive tackle. Height was their No. 1 edge defender. All three were top-50 players in ESPN’s transfer rankings. Campbell declined to disclose contract terms, but sources told ESPN that all three signed deals exceeding $1 million for 2025.
Campbell expected a steep price tag for proven players at premium positions. What really surprised him? How many players at the top of their board are now heading to Lubbock.
“We are going to have the most talented roster in the conference, and I don’t think it’s going to even be close,” Campbell said. “We have never, ever been in that position.”
AS BLANCHARD EXPLAINS the strategy behind the big spend, he pauses to bring up a program that tried this a year ago: Ole Miss.
Lane Kiffin and the Rebels loaded up to make a run in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. They surrounded returning QB Jaxson Dart with new playmakers, veteran offensive linemen and some of the best defensive talent on the market. After an 11-2 season, they shoved in their chips. And they went 10-3.
“They did a heck of a job getting their D-line last year,” Blanchard said. “I think they probably had the best D-line in college football. The issue is, they’re still playing in the SEC. That D-line they assembled isn’t anything different than what that conference sees on a week-to-week basis.”
He references the Rebels not to throw any shade, but rather to point out the difference in what he’s attempting in Lubbock.
“I’m excited to see how a portal class at this level works out in the Big 12,” Blanchard said.
Red Raider football has never enjoyed a period of dominance in this conference. Leach achieved a 10-year run of sustained success, peaking with 11 wins and a No. 12 finish in 2008. But since 2010, Texas Tech has compiled a 52-82 record in Big 12 play.
McGuire knows making moves like Tech did in December means a new level of urgency about winning big. Any pressure he’s feeling, he vowed, is internally driven. “You can’t feel any worse than I feel after a loss,” McGuire said. He couldn’t be more fired up about what he’s working with in 2025. But it’s going to take an awful lot of work to achieve something special.
The challenge begins with installing two new coordinators and playbooks. McGuire hired defensive coordinator Shiel Wood from Houston in early December by nearly doubling his salary to $1.2 million. He won the recruiting battle for coveted Texas State offensive coordinator Mack Leftwich, beating Utah, Arizona and Houston and almost tripling his pay to $1 million.
“They seem to have a little bit more resources than us right now,” Houston coach Willie Fritz told reporters after losing Wood.
Texas Tech stepped up to keep Blanchard, too, after he was heavily pursued by Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame. He’ll continue to be one of the highest-paid GMs in the country after agreeing to a new three-year deal worth more than $1.5 million.
New coordinators and schemes means there will be lots of learning this offseason and competition in spring ball. The incoming transfers have combined for 215 career starts and more than 16,000 career snaps in college. It’s a class loaded with seniors who have one season left and should be highly motivated to play their best football and boost their draft stock.
They’re joining a team with 13 returning starters and 15 more who have starting experience. Texas Tech endured minimal offseason portal attrition despite all the talent they’ve added.
“We’ve had some guys coming up and saying, ‘Blanch, you wasted your money on that one. I’m gonna beat ’em out.'” Blanchard said. “Man, I would love it if you do. Go do it. That’s how I want you to think. I don’t want you to tuck tail and run. Go compete.”
Getting the chemistry and camaraderie right between returning team leaders and the touted free agents is essential. Virgil trusts that his fellow newcomers will arrive with the right mentality and recognizes it will require full buy-in from everyone to make this team unstoppable.
“On paper we look crazy,” Virgil said. “There shouldn’t be anybody that’s able to run through us.”
One thing McGuire says he’s never going to do, in recruiting or retention, is guarantee anybody a starting position. The new guys must compete for everything they get regardless of their compensation. Campbell is confident they can retain their transfers during the April transfer window, too, and said deals were structured so players receive the bulk of their payments after the portal closes.
The head coach acknowledges Arizona State, BYU, Baylor and several more teams in their league are in good shape for 2025. The first year of 12-team CFP proved that a 9-3 record won’t cut it unless, as Clemson did, you win your conference. McGuire insists he’s going to expect to be in the Big 12 title game every year. That’s how much he believes in their people and their plan.
“Man, I came here to win championships,” McGuire said. “I wanna be in that game so bad.”
After the portal haul he pulled off, Blanchard doesn’t mince words about Texas Tech’s ambitions.
“This place has never gone to the Big 12 championship or won one,” Blanchard said. “Everybody from the top down is wanting one in Lubbock, Texas. I can’t imagine. It’ll be a dream.
“But it’s gonna be a dream come true, because it’s about to happen.”