Keyshawn Johnson went looking for a clean rebuttal to Joey McGuire and ended up making the Texas Tech coach’s case for him.
McGuire’s Monday comments about USC’s thin showing for its home opener against San Jose State stirred up plenty of noise, and Johnson jumped in on Thursday with a long social media response aimed at defending the Trojans. His basic message was simple: Los Angeles offers too many distractions for fans to treat an early-season game like a must-see event.
“When you live in L.A.," Johnson says, "you got a million different things that you can do besides sit up and watch USC get out to a 28-0 halftime lead against San Jose State when you was favored by 30-something."
Johnson also leaned on USC’s official attendance figure of 57,000, though that number was based on ticket sales rather than the number of people actually in the Coliseum. Anyone who saw the stadium last Saturday could tell the crowd was nowhere near that mark.
From there, Johnson tried to turn the conversation toward Texas Tech and Lubbock, arguing that McGuire had no business questioning USC’s fan base. In a three-minute video, he pointed to the 100-degree heat, the quality of the opponent and all the things there are to do in the Los Angeles area as reasons the Trojans shouldn’t be judged too harshly for the opening-day turnout.
“And to those coaches and other programs," he says, "like Coach McGuire at Texas Tech, talking about it's always going to be crowded at Texas Tech. Yeah, that's true 'cause ya'll ain't got [expletive] else to do."
He kept going, saying he had been to Lubbock and knew there was nothing happening there, then tried to drive the point home by bringing up Tommy Tuberville leaving “in the middle of the night” to coach at Cincinnati. Johnson also reached back to the 1995 Cotton Bowl, where he had a big game against the Red Raiders, as if a performance from more than 30 years ago somehow settles the present-day argument.
It didn’t.
If anything, Johnson’s rant ended up underscoring McGuire’s point: Texas Tech fans show up for Texas Tech. The Red Raiders, in a town of around 300,000, routinely pack their 60,000-seat stadium to at least 95% capacity for home games. They’ve already sold out Saturday’s opener against FCS opponent Abilene Christian, a turnout that would require about 20% of the Lubbock population.
USC, meanwhile, plays in a metro area of over 18 million people and still struggles to fill a 77,000-seat stadium. A sellout there would only require 0.42% of the L.A.
Metro population, yet that can still be a stretch. That’s the contrast McGuire was pointing to: a football town that treats every home game like a priority versus a program in a city where college football is often just one option among many.
Johnson tried to frame the issue as a matter of which games matter more in Los Angeles, saying Trojan crowds will show up for Friday night games or when Oregon, Ohio State and Washington come to town. But that only reinforced the idea McGuire was making in the first place - that Texas Tech fans come for their team, not the opponent.
Johnson was never going to stay silent after McGuire took aim at USC’s crowd. That much was predictable.
What he needed was a stronger defense than “We have better things to do in L.A.” Instead, he gave Texas Tech fans exactly the kind of fuel they love, and he reminded everyone why McGuire felt so comfortable making the comparison in the first place.
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