How Did The Texas Tech Football QB Situation Become So Shaky?

Jett Duffey’s Two Suspensions

Jett Duffey was the most highly-decorated high school quarterback to sign with the Texas Tech football program since Graham Harrell.  The Mansfield, TX native was the 2015 Landry Award Winner as the top football player in the North Texas region and was Mr. Texas Football and the class 5A player of the year.

In addition, he was one of only twenty high school prospects selected to compete in the prestigious Elite 11 QB competition at the Nike World Headquarters in Oregon prior to his senior year.  In other words, he was expected to be the next great Texas Tech QB.

And that could have already come to fruition were it not for off-field issues.  As mentioned earlier, Duffey has been suspended on two separate occasions since being on campus.

When Duffey was forced to miss all of the spring and summer 2017 semesters, it ended any opportunity he would have had to compete for the starting QB job last fall.  Many believe that Duffey, given his mobility and athleticism, would have been a legitimate threat to beat out Nic Shimonek for the job a year ago.

But he was not on campus in the spring or for the start of fall camp and as a result, he did not have the opportunity to gain the invaluable experience he would have needed in order to orchestrate the offense effectively.  Shimonek was limited physically, especially in terms of mobility, and is not the type of quarterback Kliff Kingsbury prefers but Duffey is, making it logical to think that he could have been last year’s starter.

Plus, the fact that he did not return from suspension until the middle of preseason camp meant that he was not able to earn the backup QB job as well.  That is significant because he likely would have had an opportunity to play in 2017 as Shimonek struggled.

Furthermore, his time away from football led to a sore shoulder that forced him to be shut down for several weeks during the season meaning he lost even more valuable developmental time.

And his second suspension, though it was only for a handful of workouts, also interrupted his growth at a critical time.  Reports out of spring practice had suggested that Duffey was starting to show significant progress and stepping forward in the 2018 QB race.

But when he was arrested, the door was thrown wide open for Carter to pull even or perhaps take the lead in the competition.  There is a feeling around the program that Kingsbury would prefer Duffey because of his overall talent but Duffey continues to keep shooting himself in the foot.

When Duffey was nearing the end of his first suspension, Kingsbury seemed to remain optimistic about his future.

“We expect him to slide right in and be very good. I know he’s working hard back at home he’s a very talented player and I expect him to come in to camp at a high level.” he told the “Dallas Morning News”.

But it is fair to wonder what the QB picture would look like this year if Duffey had been able to stay out of trouble.  If he had been able to earn the starting job last season, or even earn significant playing time, there would be optimism about the 2018 offense rather than concern.