Joe McGuire lifts lid on strict college football regime

Float tanks, a $5m annual food budget and the brutal consequences of being one minute late. Joe McGuire has lifted the lid on his wild ride as a college punter and the moment that felt like a “scene from a movie”.

Melbourne raised college punterJoe McGuire has lifted the lid on the incredible and strict regimen he’s joined in Ohio and how he’s never paid for a beer since being part of a fairytale national championship win.

McGuire and the Ohio State Buckeyes team claimed the title over Notre Dame in January in Atlanta with a national audience of more than 22 million.

It was a monumental rise since he first tried out via Prokick Australia over Face Time to the US in 2023.

McGuire said they had 13 days off after the title victory before returning for a brutal winter block of training.

“When I got here I was like, wow, no this is legitimate, this is real,’’ he told the Howie Games’ College Diaries podcast.

“You sort of have no idea what to expect. We have cryotherapy, sauna, float tanks, machines I don’t even know the names of that can ultrasound your muscle movement or strength. Our squat racks all have cameras on them that can determine the velocity of how fast you stand up or push a bench press up so you know how explosive you’re being (and) see how weak you are.

McGuire with his championship rings and medal from Donald Trump.

“Force plates to see not just how long you’re in the air for, for a vertical, but see how much force is going through each leg to see if there’s any form of imbalance. We’ve got two outdoor practice fields that are grass, two this turf and an indoor turf. You go upstairs, we’ve got like seven or eight chefs, food budgets around $5m per year just for food.”

McGuire, son of TV host and former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire, is used to big crowds growing up going to AFL matches. But he said there’s normally 80,000 people at the spring game which is like a practice match, and they averaged over 100,000 for crowds in season.

Eddie and Carla McGuire with son Xander supporting Joe.

He said training standards were uncompromising.

“Basically you have to be there 25 minutes before your session and if you are 24 minutes early you (cost) your entire unit,’’ McGuire said.

“So by unit it’s the other specialists and your coach are banned from the locker room for three days on first offence, five days on second offence.

“You miss that session that you were late for. You then have to make up that session next week and then you, your unit, your coach have to come in at 5.30 on Saturday morning. You have to clean the gym and restock the fridges and you have to do a make up lift that day as well. And then you have community service.

“So being 24 minutes early doesn’t cut it, has to be 25 minutes.

“So what you’ll do that morning, you’ll have about an hour of running, maybe an hour and 15.

Joe McGuire in his championship jersey.

“Then you’ll go into an hour to an hour and a half of lift every day Monday to Friday, which is pretty tough, but luckily at least you get the weekends off.”

McGuire said the team got a police escort to the ground in Atlanta after flying on their own plane with a sea of scarlet and grey lining the streets.

“By the time we got back to the hotel it was probably 2am,’’ McGuire said.

“So everything’s closed. It’s a Monday night as well. Had a couple of beers at the hotel with the boys and my brother and my best mate. I introduced the Americans to a shoey which was pretty funny.”

He said it was -24 degrees when they got back to Ohio the next day.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in this cold in my life,’’ McGuire said.

Xander, Eddie and Carla McGuire with Joe on the field.

“We’re going into a bar, I’ve got a shirt on, that’s it. As I walk in it is genuinely a scene from a movie. We’ve got straight into the champagne shower. We’ve got these two big identical twin players and one of them gives me a bottle of beer and the other has a bucket of beer and sort of goes pick your poison boys. We got champagne showers all the time. So the reception when we got back was pretty special and I have not bought a beer since.”

McGuire also got to meet US president Donald Trump at the White House with the team, and shook his hand in the Oval Office.

“There’s a lot of great teams that win national championships, but not many win back to back,’’ McGuire said.

“It’s a great thing to win a national championship. But as they always say around Ohio State, let’s turn good into great.”

Originally published as Joe McGuire lifts lid on strict college football regime