CFP QUARTERFINAL AT THE CAPITAL ONE ORANGE BOWL: OREGON VS TEXAS TECH

December 30, 2025

Shiel Wood

Hard Rock Stadium

Texas Tech Red Raiders

Press Conference

Q. How unusual is it (indiscernible)?

SHIEL WOOD: Oh, gosh, that's a great question. I don't know how unusual it is, but I do think (indiscernible) first year getting the defensive staff on the same page and tying it in with our players, to that extent it doesn't matter. I'm in my first year at Texas Tech. Our staff is in our first year.

So whether guys will return as players to Texas Tech or new to Texas Tech was irrelevant from the standpoint of our defensive system was new to all of them. So it was a challenge in year one, and the credit goes to our staff and our players, just the tremendous buy-in, their talent level, their ability. Our staff are great teachers, great students of the game, understand concepts.

Our guys have bought in, and the players have been outstanding. To be able to do all that in the first year has been tremendous.

I do think now kind of with the last several years of college football and more player movement that, to a certain extent, depending on where you're at, you've got to build a team each year. And maybe in years past it was more of an established program, then you could kind of bring guys from high school and develop over a several-year period.

I think now sometimes it's a little bit more of you've got to be ready defensively to build a new team each year because you have new players filling in for you.

Q. Why do you think it's working?

SHIEL WOOD: I think that our success is attributed to several things, but I think it starts with the leadership of Joey McGuire and the culture that he had already established in our building and in our program with our players already in the locker room.

I think that this is an extremely positive environment. He is a tremendous guy. He's the same individual, a consistent leader. So these guys know what to expect. They know what they're going to get from him. He just really creates this environment that's fun to work in every day, whether you're a player or a coach.

Then our guys, I think we have done -- Coach McGuire has done a great job with our staff of bringing in really good football players but also really good people that are high character, hardworking, love the game of football. And we've been blessed with some of the new guys that come in this year from other schools, that transferred in, are cut from that same cloth.

I think collectively in that locker room, we're a player-led team. We talk about that all the time, and I think we've got tremendous leadership, and they have just done a great job of bonding together and working their rear ends off, and that's why we've had the success we have.