Joey McGuire has worn many hats over his career through the high school and college coaching ranks, but he’s looking to add a new one: Commissioner of fixing the college football calendar.

The fourth-year head coach jokingly offered his name up for the self-imposed fake title Wednesday during a media availability, but his frustration with the current format is real. He believes every team should play Week 0, that a champion should be crowned by Jan. 1 and bowl games should be invitationals set for Week 1.

McGuire’s team had a historic season, winning a Big 12 title and earning a bye in the College Football Playoff. Its reward is 26 days of non-compete before playing in the Capital One Orange Bowl on Jan. 1. McGuire loves it for player health. He hates it because it makes football a two-semester sport.

“Texas high school playoffs are playing 16 games, and they’re crowning a state champion this weekend. FCS has 24 teams in their playoff and they’re crowning a national champion on January 5,” McGuire said. “People are so stuck on traditions and all that. I get that, man. I’m a traditionalist 100%. But guess what? It’s changed.”

By finishing the season on Jan. 1, teams would be able to seamlessly transition into the transfer portal, which opens on Jan. 2, he said. This doesn’t eliminate the unpredictable coaching changes that can happen at programs competing in the playoff, but McGuire argues that unfavorable personnel changing is inevitable regardless of calendar shifts.

Many programs with general managers can handle the current overlap of playoffs and the portal window. Some programs’ philosophies, such as Texas Tech’s, separate the responsibilities while in season. McGuire’s job in recruiting extends only as far as daily texts at this stage in the season, while general manager James Blanchard is working 20-plus-hour days on recruiting trails.

However, only 12 teams are playing for a national championship in December. The rest of the country is either finished with its season or competing in bowl games with a withered staff and roster due to opt-outs and the rapid coaching carousel.

McGuire has his solution ready for that problem.

“How about moving the bowl games to an invitation? And that would be week one, Aug. 23, and we’re playing bowl games Thursday, Friday, Saturday,” McGuire said. “ … You’re going to lose a home game, but you still would have a huge attraction TV-wise. It would be a big watch because you know everybody’s dying for college football week one.”

As McGuire stated, the invitational bowl game would erase a home game for teams. But McGuire wouldn’t be a successful commissioner if he didn’t have a solution to ensure teams could fill out their schedules as they pleased.

“We’ve got these kids all summer long. Camp doesn’t need to be a month long,” McGuire said. “We can play zero week, and you know rock and roll.”

Unfortunately for the hopeful-minded “commissioner,” changes in the college football calendar start with the networks, which he does not work with. However, McGuire said he will speak on the subject whenever given the chance because the conversation starts with him and other college football coaches being outspoken in a time of change.

Find more Texas Tech coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.

Texas A&M (11-1, 7-1 SEC) is three days away from hosting Miami (10-2) in the first round of the College Football Playoff on Saturday afternoon, as this will be the first appearance in the tournament for both programs, and by far the best game of the weekend outside of Alabama vs. Oklahoma on Friday night.

This week, Texas A&M’s media team teased the fan base and those of us in the media, changing the Texas A&M Football X page’s profile picture to a blacked-out Texas A&M emblem. Still, on Wednesday, the team released a video showing the CFP symbol printed on the standard Maroon jersey, which likely means the Aggies will go with their regular home look.

However, nothing is set in stone until the final uniform reveal, which will likely release on Thursday afternoon, so for those hoping for a blackout, which would be a first during an early afternoon kickoff, that scenario is still in play. Still, it won’t matter which uniform the Aggies play in, knowing that Miami will field a roster chock-full of NFL talent on both sides of the ball.

For Texas A&M to defend home field, starting quarterback Marcel Reed need to avoid turnovers and play with confidence in the pocket, knowing that Miami star defensive end Rueben Bain is looking to cause havoc in the backfield, meaning Reed will need to get the ball out of hands seconds after the snap, and rely on his elite wide receiver corps to make plays after the catch.

AUSTIN — In a state where political fights rarely take a holiday, one small tradition offers a respite, wrapped in gold, glitter and goodwill.

Hanging from the boughs of Christmas trees across Texas, annual ornaments featuring the Texas State Capitol capture the beauty of the season and the history of the state, without the bluster and bile that typically characterize life under the pink dome.

Rep. Rafael Anchía, D-Dallas, has one on his tree for each year he’s served in the Legislature, where he was first sworn in a few weeks after Christmas in January 2005. Each season, he buys roughly 30 more to give away, a tradition he says transcends party labels.

“They are amazing. It’s the ideal Christmas gift,” he said, making his best holiday sales pitch. “A surefire way to please constituents and mothers-in-laws across the political spectrum.”

Nelda Laney, wife of then-House Speaker Pete Laney, launched the ornament tradition in 1996 with designs created by the Texas State Preservation Board, the steward of the Capitol and other historic state buildings.

Now, the board’s retail team spends at least two-thirds of the year overseeing the annual design, according to the Texas Capitol Gift Shop website. The board runs three shops: one in the underground Capitol extension, one in the Bob Bullock Museum of Texas History and one in the Capitol Visitors’ Center on the south side of the grounds.

Over the years, the team has produced dozens of iconic ornaments, made of metal or granite, in flat relief or 3D, some lit up, some mobile. The final designs range from shiny metal locomotives to intricately designed granite miniatures of the entire building.

The 2025 design — a view of the Capitol as seen from Congress Avenue in downtown Austin — is a throwback to the inaugural “First Edition” design in 1996, if modernized a bit.

The ornament shows the Capitol’s entire south face, decorated with holiday wreaths and Yaupon Holly swags wrapped around its columns, the board’s description says. The six flags that have flown over Texas appear on the south pediment, with both the Texas and U.S. flags flying above the entrance. The 1889 Great Walk, paved in a black-and-white checkerboard pattern, is flanked by a grand allée of trees, leading visitors inside.

Texas Capitol ornaments through the years

It’s one of dozens of designs that, over the years, have turned the Capitol ornament into a recognizable Lone Star collectible.

A wee statue of the Goddess of Liberty spinning inside golden rings covered in stars debuted in 2006. Three years later, it was black and gold, rectangular — the shape and feel of a tapestry — regarded as one of the more unique designs in the collection. Another from that era used a colorful disc depicting the six flags over Texas. The ornaments start at $25. The current design is fairly typical: Finished in 24-karat gold and 3.5 inches by 3.4 inches.

Older ornaments can be purchased in sets of miniatures. They are available online through the board. The money goes to the preservation board, a taxpayer-funded state agency that releases a new specialty Texas-themed ornament every year.

Related

The ornament release has become a ritual for many, from Capitol employees to repeat customers who buy the ornament every year as gifts.

“A lot of people will come in and buy six because they give one to each family member every year,” said Lisa Gentry, shop manager. “Sometimes they buy the year of their child’s birth. There’s a lot who have a Texas tree, which is only the Texas ornaments that they’ve shopped for in our stores.”

Lawmakers as designers

Rep. Jessica González, D-Dallas, has the entire miniature collection and several annual ornaments from her four terms in office. Her favorite ornaments, she said, are the ones lawmakers design each Christmas to reflect their home districts. Those hang on the Texas House Christmas tree each season and aren’t for sale.

This year, she had two designed by Jesse Acosta and Alejandra Zendejas, co-founders of Pasos for Oak Cliff, a Dallas nonprofit that provides sneakers and other support services to underserved students.

“It’s a small but meaningful way to showcase the flavor of our community… a reminder that every district has its own voice,” González said.

On the consumer side, on a random Thursday two weeks before Christmas, the Capitol gift shop — next door to the building’s popular Capitol Grill — sold more than 300 of the shiny 2025 Texas Capitol keepsakes.

That one design. In one day. In just that one shop.

“People really love them,” Gentry said the following day, as more than 100 flew off her shelves before noon. “Today it’s been nonstop.”

All the trimmings of the 2025 Texas Capitol ornament

• Design: South-facing view of the Capitol from Congress Avenue
• Finish: 24-karat gold
• Size: About 3.5 inches by 3.4 inches
• Price: Starts at $25

Where they’re sold

• Capitol gift shop (underground extension)
• Bob Bullock Museum of Texas History
• Capitol Visitors’ Center
• Online through the Preservation Board

Where the money goes

Proceeds support the Texas State Preservation Board, a taxpayer-funded agency that maintains the Capitol and other historic buildings.