Texas Tech football: Kingsbury criticized for running Alan Bowman

Texas Tech football head coach Kliff Kingsbury is being criticized by Red Raider fans and the media for the designed run that resulted in QB Alan Bowman suffering another collapsed lung on Saturday against OU.

As if Texas Tech football fans did not have enough data points to use in the ongoing Kliff Kingsbury debate, Saturday night’s decision to have quarterback Alan Bowman run the ball near the goal line has stirred up yet another round of bickering.

With Texas Tech trailing 28-24 and facing a 1st-and-goal from the OU five-yard-line, Kingsbury had Alan Bowman keep the ball on a run to the left side of the defense.  Bowman was knocked out of bounds at the two and though he was slow to get up, he remained in the game.

On the next play, he tired to hit T.J. Vasher on a fade route but the badly thrown ball was picked off by Motley Parnell.  However, a pass interference penalty gave Tech another play and Da’Leon Ward would score on a 1-yard rush to give Tech the lead.

But after halftime, Bowman would not return to the field as we would later learn that he was complaining about shortness of breath as he tried to warm up at the end of intermission.  Kingsbury would eventually reveal that Bowman sustained a reoccurrence of the collapsed lung that he initially suffered on September 29th against West Virginia.

As of Sunday night, Bowman was still hospitalized for observation putting his status for the remainder of the season in serious doubt.  But when asked about the decision to expose Bowman to the possibility of a bit hit, Kingsbury became a bit surly with the media.

"“He’s played 4 games and gotten hit a lot.” Kingsbury said. “I don’t know if you watched those games, but he got hit a lot. So we didn’t think that would be much of a difference. We’re playing football. I think their QB ran it about 20 times and he’s pretty valuable to them.”"

That is about as short as we’ve ever seen Kingsbury be with the media and it appeared that he took a bit of exception to the idea that it was unwise to risk his starting quarterback’s health on a play that isn’t normally part of the offensive package.

Those that disagree with the decision are quick to point out that there is a huge difference in OU asking their QB Kyler Murray to run the ball and Tech asking Alan Bowman to run the ball. Murray (who carried the ball 11 times against Tech for 100 yards) is a running quarterback.

He is second on his own team in rushing with 547 yards on the ground.  With 82 carries this year, including five games of at least 10 carries.  Murray is far more proficient at running with the ball and avoiding big hits than is Bowman who has 29 carries on the year with the vast majority of those being sacks (which count as rushing attempts for some reason).

Plus, Kingsbury’s own comments after the game make it seem like his QB did not execute the play the way the coaches expected.  He told Don Williams of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that he expected Bowman to turn the play up and get into the end zone.

But on the other side of the equation is the camp that believes Bowman should not be held back from executing any part of the offense if he has been cleared to play by his physicians.  Kingsbury has repeatedly indicated that the true freshman was at 100% against OU which meant he had no hesitation in asking Bowman to operate the full playbook.

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Those backing Kingsbury point out that if Bowman had suffered an injury on a sack or at the end of an undesigned scramble, we would not be questioning Kingsbury’s decision to have his QB execute those plays.  Certainly, an injury can occur on any play in a football game and just by being on the field, Bowman is at risk but perhaps that’s the crux of the issue.

Though Bowman was deemed to be 100% healthy, a collapsed lung is an injury that is more likely to reoccur after the initial injury is sustained.  Therefore, why risk putting the freshman at greater risk by asking him to run a play that is almost certain to end in a collision of some type?

Reasonable fans can see both sides of the issue.  And perhaps hindsight plays a role as well.  But at the time of the play, it seemed to be an odd call, especially considering that Tech had been able to run the ball with success on that drive as Da’Leon Ward went for 32 yards on the previous play.

Putting your quarterback, who is already more susceptible to injury, in a situation where he and a defender are likely to meet head-on at full speed seems a bit short-sighted and unwise.  And unfortunately, that decision likely cost Texas Tech a chance at pulling off the upset of the Sooners.

Tech would score on 15 points in the second half and six of those points came on a garbage-time drive in the 4th quarter with OU playing a pseudo prevent defense.  But as it stands, Kingsbury was willing to take a risk with his most important player and it backfired on him.  Now, we can only hope that decision doesn’t cost the Red Raiders any more wins than it may have already.