The Red Raiders marched into the locker room at halftime Saturday night trailing the Kansas State Wildcats 17-14 but carrying all the momentum on their homecoming night at Jones AT&T Stadium.
After going down 17-7 with 1:20 left to play in the first half, Texas Tech and its starting quarterback, Behren Morton, mounted a seven-play, 89-yard touchdown drive to keep it a one-score game.
The drive was capitalized by a key 30-yard completion to Xavier White and an equally important 30-yard rush by star running back Tahj Brooks. Brooks would later score a touchdown from two yards out to cap off the 54-second drive.
The home team was behind, but they had punched back when they needed to follow a lackluster first 29 minutes of play and would receive the ball to start the second half.
It was their time to shine. They could break their streak of tough luck against a talented conference rival during a blackout game on the same day a solar eclipse graced the Lubbock sky.
One problem.
Starting quarterback Morton was not on the field after the Red Raiders received the second-half kickoff. There had been word that he was playing at less than 100% dating back to his first start against Houston, but it was hard to gauge the extent until we saw his backup trot out to open the half.
In retrospect, the non-existent arial attack from the Red Raiders in recent weeks can now be seen as a direct result of Morton’s physical condition.
“He has been playing with a banged-up shoulder,” head coach Joey McGuire said. “Got hit a couple times, and we couldn’t feel good about putting him back in in the second half with his shoulder. So we made the move to go with Jake.”
“Jake” is freshman quarterback Jake Strong, who, much to the surprise of the sellout crowd at the Jones, took the field with the starting offense for the team’s first drive of the second half. Strong held his own briefly, orchestrating a 99-yard touchdown drive in just his second drive leading the Red Raider offense, even converting a third down with a 54-yard run. But his success would be short-lived.
The subsequent three drives would each result in back-breaking interceptions in Red Raider territory that silenced the crowd and helped the Wildcats’ lead balloon to 17 points in what felt like no time at all.
A lack of success in his first half of collegiate play is not really a testament to Strong’s future. Still, it was an all-too-familiar sight for a Red Raider fan base that has witnessed a seemingly never-ending carousel of quarterbacks since Patrick Mahomes went professional after the 2016 season.
If Morton cannot play next weekend on the road against BYU, Strong will represent Tech’s third different starting quarterback of the season in just eight weeks. It would be the third straight season dating back to 2021 where the Red Raiders had to start three different quarterbacks in the same season.
“He got sacked twice, he took a big hit on the sideline where we wish he’d have thrown the ball away,” McGuire said. “He had been playing through that shoulder…I think it was a mixture of stuff. He was pretty emotional whenever he came in at halftime because he did not want to let anybody down. But when you get into a situation like that, you want to protect your guy.”
The carousel has seldom been about the quality of play. Senior quarterback Tyler Shough, who is currently out rehabbing a broken left fibula, has gone down with an injury in each of the last three seasons after transferring from Oregon. Before him, Alan Bowman went down due to injury in 2018, 2019, and 2020 before eventually transferring to Michigan and later, Oklahoma State.
The Red Raiders simply cannot keep a quarterback healthy. Backup quarterbacks Henry Colombi, Donovan Smith, and now Behren Morton have all gone down to injury in the stead of Bowman and Shough.
On Saturday night against the Wildcats, the loss of a quarterback was especially devastating given that the Red Raiders were fighting hard against a tough opponent who they’ve had little success against recently. Texas Tech is now 1-10 against Kansas State in its last 11 contests.
After receiver Jerand Bradley hauled in an acrobatic 8-yard touchdown grab to give Texas Tech a 21-17 lead early in the second quarter, Strong’s stretch of turnover-ending drives began. As a result, the Wildcats closed it out with 21 unanswered points to seal their 38-21 victory.
It is hard to blame Strong for his struggles given the circumstances. It would have been a tough spot for any third-string true freshman to step into, let alone against the Wildcats front seven. The Wildcat defense had totaled 43 tackles for loss and 14 sacks through its first five games.
Facing a 10-point deficit in the second half, the team was forced to throw the ball with their young, inexperienced quarterback after relying on Brooks and the run game for most of the contest. He had 14 carries for 84 yards rushing when the team went up 21-17 with 7:31 to play in the third quarter. He had three carries for 14 yards the rest of the way.
Brooks, coming off a career-high 170-yard rushing performance against Baylor, finished with 98 rushing yards and failed to eclipse the 100-yard rushing marker for the first time since Texas Tech played Oregon on Sept. 9. He ran seven times for 71 yards in that game.
With the third consecutive season of witnessing a third-string quarterback start in the middle of the season suddenly on the table, it is easy as a Red Raider fan to feel like you keep waking up to Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” on repeat before game days.
With a week of preparation under his belt before BYU, Strong will almost certainly turn in a better performance against the Cougars if he indeed is the starter. It should not, after all, be discounted that in the midst of all the quarterback turnover, the Red Raiders have still been able to turn in winning records and bowl game victories each of the last two seasons.
“He throws a good deep ball, had some good passes on that,” McGuire said. “He has good connection with the receivers. He has been with the ones and the twos. The week we were going into Houston, he took the majority of the reps because Behren did not throw any. He took a lot of the reps this week.”
Following this week’s loss, the Red Raiders fell to just one game under .500 at 3-4 one week away from their bye week. The team had won three out of four contests prior to their loss against Kansas State.
Strong’s resume includes 82 touchdowns and 6,688 passing yards in his career at Northwest High School in Fort Worth, a 5A program. Both of those figures represent program records. He was rated a four-star prospect by ESPN and a three-star recruit by 247Sports.
“He is young and was put in a tough situation coming in instead of really starting a game, but I thought he did some really good things,” McGuire said.
Strong finished his collegiate debut having completed 16 of 28 passes for 173 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions.
The actual severity of Morton’s arm injury is not yet known.
Injuries are, and always will be, a part of sports. Especially football. Thus, having depth is as important in this game as any.
Texas Tech can still rebound and win games with a backup under center like it did in 2021 and 2022. But with another prized quarterback commit in Will Hammond on the way in 2024, this program has to address its offensive line woes before another highly anticipated collegiate career is derailed by injuries like that of Bowman’s and Shough’s.
You have to keep your quarterback upright in order to succeed in the game of football. It is just McGuire’s second year at the helm of Texas Tech, but if it does not get fixed, it really does not matter what else happens; he will not get anywhere close to the expectations he has for this Texas Tech football program.
Loading ...