Episode 1 of ‘The Brand’ Has The People Fired Up About Texas Tech Football
The Brand debuted for Texas Tech football and episode 1 gave fans the exact definition of head coach Joey McGuire's brand. In fact, McGuire wastes little time getting into it. "We're gonna play so friggin' hard," he tells the team in his opening monologue. "We're gonna make you so proud to be a Red Raider by the way we play."
McGuire expands on the brand saying the team will play at Red Raider speed this year. They're also striving to be the toughest, hardest working, most competitive team in the country.
As far as the actual episode goes, I love the vibe. The music, the interviews with both the players and the coaches, the quality, it's all incredible and top-notch as always from the Texas Tech media department and ESPN+.
The episode highlights include two strong moments from players.
First, Dadrion Taylor-Demerson being a vocal leader at practice is something we haven't been able to see before. He had an expanded role last year after some injuries and could really break out in 2022 if he's a strong leader.
Next, it was really interesting to see Myles Price talking about the team feeling like a family as opposed to an offensive group and a defensive group. The Kingsbury Era's biggest knock was probably that the team was too focused on offense. Price joined the team in 2020 and didn't feel like the team started to bond until late last year, but I'm not going to make any broad speculations about that.
The best one-liner in the episode came from running backs coach Kenny Perry, who screamed: "The only thing that's soft in West Texas is the cotton" while coaching his guys to run tough routes.
I'm looking forward to the next episode that seems like it will focus on the quarterback battle between Tyler Shough, Donovan Smith and Behren Morton. More Zach Kittley will also be great, and Emmett Jones is a star so hopefully he gets some screen time, too.
The Brand will go for four total episodes and was filmed through the Red Raiders' spring practices.