Texas Tech football: The Good, the bad and the ugly of Jett Duffey’s performance

The good: Athleticism nearly leads to a historic comeback

The circumstance surrounding Jett Duffey’s first ever Big 12 action could not have been much worse.  Having not had the game plan tailored to his strengths and being the recipient of only backup QB repetitions during the week’s practices, Duffey had to try to engineer a 25-point comeback against the No. 12 team in the nation.

But that is what he almost did.  Duffey was far from perfect, as we will get to in a moment, but he may have been the perfect change of pace to get the Red Raider offense back into the game.  For the first two quarters, West Virginia’s defense bullied the Texas Tech offense in every way.

The Red Raiders were dominated at the line of scrimmage (as evidenced by the crushing hit that took Bowman out of the game) and in the secondary.  The mountaineers seemed to know exactly what Texas Tech wanted to do and at times it felt like WVU had 12 players on the field.

Before he was injured, Alan Bowman struggled with the WVU pressure as he completed just 9 of 20 passes (45%) for 123 yards an interception and a score.  His receivers struggled as well failing to get open against the tight WVU coverage while also dropping at least three passes that should have been completed.

To say the Red Raider offense was stagnant would be an understatement.  But once Duffey found his rhythm, Texas Tech’s offense got hot.

Starting at the 6:44 mark of the third quarter, Duffey led Texas Tech on three-consecutive scoring drives to cut the WVU lead to 35-27.  And the key to his success was his ability to utilize his legs.

Relying on his instincts to compensate for his lack of experience, Duffey led the team in rushing with 86 yards on 15 carries, including a 3-yard TD run.  It was exactly that type of athleticism that Red Raider fans had been lusting for.

His best moment of the day came on a 27-yard scramble on 4th-and-9 when he eluded three WVU pass rushers in the pocket and split two would-be tacklers along the sideline.  It was the type of play that no other quarterback on the roster could have made and it showed why so many have been clambering to see Duffey get an opportunity.

This is a different offense with Jett Duffey at QB.  Not that the offense was struggling with Alan Bowman at QB (Tech entered the WVU game with the No. 1 overall offense in the country), but having a QB with that type of athleticism gives the offense an extra dimension to rely on if the passing game is struggling.

So often last year, Tech was helpless against tough cloud zone defenses that took away the passing game.  Teams had no need to fear seeing Shimonek make plays with his legs but when Duffy began to improvise against WVU, it changed the complexion of the game.

It was an exciting addition to the “Air Raid” offense and caused many fans to wonder what Kingsbury could do if he built an entire game-plan around such a skill set.  But while Duffey’s legs were his saving grace, his arm proved to be far less reliable.