Hey there...while I may not have found out myself because geez these forums are like a ghost town, lol. But anyway, I had forgotten a step from the tutorial which involved having the faces selected then on the Modify tab > Unwrap UVW layer; Select faces then on the right side panel scroll down to the Projection settings and select one of the options based off the shape of the model then select x, y, z. It works best if the UVW Editor window is open and the checkerbox background is selected so you can see which axis comes out with the most straightened checkers on the model.
My primary issue when I made this post was that my texture was getting all distorted on roundish areas of the model but it was fixed after I used a planar map with the y axis. Afterward the UV shape didn't matter and the texture was straightened out.
