Texas Tech's Joey McGuire makes headway on staff

New Texas Tech football coach Joey McGuire has filled four of the 10 assistant-coach positions on his staff with the addition of coaches from Baylor and SMU and the retention of Tech running backs coach DeAndre Smith.

Tech announced the moves Monday.

Josh Bookbinder has joined the Tech staff from Baylor, where McGuire was associate head coach for 2 ½ seasons. McGuire also has hired SMU special teams coordinator Kenny Perry to be his associate head coach and special teams coordinator.

Bookbinder, most recently a quality-control staff member for the Bears, will be the secondary coach for the Red Raiders.

Smith followed Matt Wells to Tech from Utah State three years ago and will stay on for a fourth season. It had been speculated that McGuire might keep DeAndre Smith, whose son, redshirt freshman Donovan Smith, was the Red Raiders' starting quarterback for the last three games of the regular season.

"We are fired up to add two quality coaches in Kenny and Josh to our staff," McGuire said in Tech's announcement. "Both have deep ties to the state of Texas and have coached for successful programs. Most importantly, they are ideal fits for the culture we are working to establish with this program of coaches who will invest in our student-athletes.

"We are also fortunate DeAndre has chosen to remain on our staff. He is well-respected among his peers as one of the country’s top developers of running backs and that has been evident by his work here the past three seasons."

More: Smith to remain starting QB

McGuire told A-J Media last week he had agreements with six coaches to fill spots among the 10 assistants allowed by NCAA rule. Among the six, he said, is Sonny Cumbie, who he retained as offensive coordinator.

McGuire said the timeline for announcing additional hires could be delayed by candidates elsewhere being involved in preparations for conference championship games this week.

Smith and Cumbie are the only members of the 2021 on-field staff being retained, a Tech official said, though several could stay on through the Red Raiders' bowl game.

More: Joey McGuire to retain Sonny Cumbie as Texas Tech offensive coordinator

HornedFrogsBlitz, a website that covers TCU, reported that Tech special teams coordinator Mark Tommerdahl is expected to join the Horned Frogs' staff with new coach Sonny Dykes.

BleedTechBlue, a website that covers Louisiana Tech, reported Monday that Cumbie is a candidate to be the Bulldogs' head coach. On Sunday, Louisiana Tech fired Skip Holtz, who went 64-50 in nine seasons with a stretch of six consecutive winning seasons from 2014-19.

College programs in a coaching transition while preparing for a bowl, as in Tech's case, do not have to adhere to the 10-assistants limitation after the regular season ends. According to NCAA bylaws, departing staff members are allowed to continue on-field coaching through the end of the postseason while allowing incoming staff members to participate in recruiting.

Departing staff members must immediately cease recruiting activities.

In addition, according to NCAA bylaw, while exceeding the number of permissible countable coaches, a program may not exceed the allowable number of coaches participating in recruiting or in on-field coaching at any given time.

“The NCAA rules allow you, once it starts bowl season, to work with two staffs,” McGuire told A-J Media, “so you're going to have a group of guys that are going to be working the bowl practice, and then you'll start seeing guys (new hires) come in.”

Tech also announced that Quintin Jordan will return to his alma mater from Baylor to be the Red Raiders' director of football operations. Jordan earned degrees from Tech in 2010 and 2012 before spending five years at Conference USA and the past four at Baylor.

Former Red Raiders players Antonio Huffman and Sammy Morris are being retained, as well as Kate Shealy. All three are members of Tech's off-the-field support staff. McGuire supplemented that group in the past couple of weeks, bringing James Blanchard and Cody Bellaire from Baylor and Dave Martin from the Oklahoma high-school coaching ranks.

"We are pleased to continue to add to our operations and recruiting teams with Antonio, Sammy and Kate returning to our staff and then the addition of Quintin," McGuire said. "All four are held in high regard throughout the sport of football and will only enhance our staff already in place with James, Cody and Dave."

McGuire has stressed that he will hire only assistants who relate well to players.

“What I've said to the players is there's not going to be anybody that comes into this building that — they're going to be great Xs and Os guys, but they're going to be guys that pour into kids,” McGuire told A-J Media. “I don't want to be part of a toxic situation that the guy thinks he put the laces in the football and he's got a huge ego and that he invented the sport. I wanted to make sure that he's thinking about the players first.”

Perry, like McGuire, was a longtime Texas high school coach in the Metroplex – from 1992 to 2012, including stops as head coach at Arlington Houston (2000-03), Haltom (2004-05) and Arlington Bowie (2006-12), going 67-22 at the latter.

He then took various roles at TCU (2013-14), Kansas (2015-18) before spending two years with the XFL's Dallas Renegades (2019-20) and two with SMU (2020-21).

Bookbinder is a grandson of former Baylor coach Grant Teaff and a son of former San Antonio Spurs executive Russ Bookbinder. He has served the Baylor staff in a quality-control position since 2019.

Bookbinder held multiple roles from 2012-18 at Liberty, including coaching linebackers and special teams. He was as a student assistant at Baylor (2007-08) and a quality-control staffer at Richmond (2009) before going to Carson-Newman and coaching linebackers (2010) and defensive ends and special teams (2011).

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This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech's Joey McGuire hires assistants from Baylor, SMU