Texas Tech Nearly Lost its General Manager to Notre Dame

“It’s always flattering when people call you,” Blanchard said. “I’ve been blessed to get a few of those phone calls over the years. Notre Dame was probably the one I took the most serious. I honestly thought I was going to take the Notre Dame job.

“Meeting (Marcus Freeman) out at the Senior Bowl and everything’s great. Going out to South Bend and man, shoot, it’s even better… It just wasn’t the right time for me and my family. And we’d just put together what was, in my opinion, the number one portal class of all time in college football and I was like, ‘Man, shoot. Hey Marcus, I love you. We’ll do something one day, probably, but there’s still work to be done in Lubbock.”

In February of 2025, Blanchard signed a three-year extension worth $2.225 million, after bonuses and incentives, to remain at Texas Tech through at least 2028.

Texas Tech spent an estimated $30 million constructing its 2025 roster, and that money produced a Big 12 Championship and a College Football Playoff berth. With a first-round bye, the Red Raiders, the No. 4 seed, were bested by No. 5 Oregon 23-0 in the Orange Bowl, and their title hopes were cut short in easily their worst performance of the campaign.

“I would’ve never forgiven myself If I would’ve left this place and missed out on the year that we just had. I’ve never really cried in football, but when we won the Big 12 championship I was just uncontrollable because it was just a wave of emotions and a proudness or whatever that came over me for what we just did for this community, this university in their 100th year of football.”

But McGuire and the Red Raiders already have a template for success next season, and among the lot of transfers in this year’s class is former Cincinnati quarterback Brendan Sorsby, the top-ranked quarterback in the transfer portal. It helps, too, that Texas Tech’s newly appointed offensive coordinator is the son of Sorsby’s high school coach.

Sorsby’s resume, dating clear back to his first season of college football at Indiana, is indicative of what Blanchard is looking for when recruiting to Tech – team captains, specific GPAs, “structure to their life.”

“That’s the big thing about Sorsby – everybody wants to talk about Sorsby,” Blanchard said. “He’s a team captain if you look at it since he was at Indiana. Every year he’s been a starting quarterback, the team has been plus-two in wins from the previous year.”

Blanchard also provided some insight into the modern follies of recruiting, and just how naive some camps have become when it comes to NIL evaluations.

In one particular anecdote, Blanchard shared the story of how a mother of a freshman in the portal, without professional representation, considered $2.5 million a reasonable compensation package for a second-year transfer.

“It’s hard sometimes for me to tell these parents they’re stupid,” Blanchard said.

“… They have no clue. That’s everybody’s fault because people aren’t educated on the matter. She’s probably seeing a headline on Twitter, and everybody thinks their baby is the greatest in the world.”

The perfect balance between Blanchard and McGuire comes down to the simple fact that the latter doesn’t have to worry about the management side of scouting, offers, scholarships, but instead focus on development and the playbook.

Sure, support staffs are nothing new, but in today’s college football world, it’s paying Texas Tech to compartmentalize its talent search. The concept is proving fruitful, with the Red Raiders coming off their best season since the Bush administration.

“(McGuire) doesn’t watch film every day on the the day-to-day,” Blanchard said. “He has so many things that he as to do. He’s not a bird dog-type of guy, a micromanager. He, buy and large, has a skill set to hire the right people to do a job and he allows them to flourish and do their job.”

It’s hard to say just how far Blanchard and McGuire, together, can take Texas Tech in the current state of the portal, but the Red Raiders, as of April, already find themselves among the top 10 transfer portal classes (No. 2 by On3; Indiana is No. 1). It’s no surprise Notre Dame and others are clamoring for Blanchard and want his system for their own.