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

The Bad: Duffey’s ability to execute the passing attack

Being able to run the ball is a luxury for a quarterback but being able to throw the ball, especially at Texas Tech, is essential.  That is where Jett Duffey was not up to par against West Virginia.

Overall, he completed 16 of 27 passes (59.3%) for 172 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions.  Those numbers are far from horrendous.  In fact, they were comparable to the stat line Alan Bowman put up in his first ever appearance, which came in almost the exact same circumstances.

Taking over for the injured McLane Carter in the season’s first game against Ole Miss, Bowman had a nearly identical completion percentage (59.2%) and averaged 9.41 yards per completion, just slightly lower than Duffey’s 10.75.

Still, Duffey did not look to the nearly as proficient throwing the football.  It was easy to tell that he is a player who has spent the majority of his football career relying on his legs as his primary weapon and when facing live fire in a Big 12 game for the first time, those instincts took over.

Far too frequently, Duffey got  happy feet in the pocket.  Rarely did he stay in the pocket long enough to go through all of his progressions.

When the first or second read was not available, he seemed to panic, much the way that Shimonek did last year.  The only difference was that Duffey could make something happen with his feet whereas Shimonek would usually resort to throwing the ball away.

Also, Duffey showed a lack of touch on his passes.  It seemed like every throw (except for one, which we will get to in a moment) was a fastball.

In fact, Duffey’s biggest completion came on a pass that had no business being caught.  On a 35-yard completion to Antoine Wesley in the 4th quarter, Duffey’s ball was under thrown forcing Wesley to make a circus catch in which he tipped the ball to himself and around the defensive back.

If Duffey is ever going to be a complete college quarterback, he must improve this aspect of his game.  As teams scout him, they are going to do everything possible to put the game on his arm and take his legs out of the equation.

And unfortunately, that has often been a struggle for Duffey, as we saw against West Virginia when two ugly decisions led to disaster.