Texas Tech football: Offensive line play as impactful as QB injuries

The Texas Tech football program has seen its offensive line play deteriorate as the season has progressed hurting the team just as much as the quarterback injuries.

The prevailing narrative surrounding the Texas Tech football team during its current 4-game losing streak has been the unprecedented string of injuries to befall the quarterbacks.  But while those injuries have certainly hurt what was once a 5-2 team, they could have been overcome if other position groups on the team had stepped up.  However, one of those groups that was supposed to be an above average unit, the offensive line, has been awful when Kliff Kingsbury’s team has needed it most.

What is puzzling about the play up front has been how the line has gotten worse as the year as progressed despite remaining virtually intact.  Certainly, there have been nagging injuries such as the injury that forced Paul Staward to miss the TCU game and some time against Iowa State and the knee injury against OU that cost guard Jacob Hines his season but the group that the Red Raiders had on the field against Kansas State was the same starting five that it left fall camp with.

And that group was atrocious against a statistically unimpressive Kansas State defense last Saturday. The Red Raiders ran for just 31 yards on the day marking the second time in the last four games that Tech has been held in the 30’s on the ground.  Four games ago, the Red Raiders managed just 30 yards against Iowa State in the first game of this losing streak.

That stat is even more troubling considering the fact that during this awful stretch, Tech has had its top running back, Da’Leon Ward, fully healthy for the first time since week-one.  But since the Red Raiders’ September 22 win over Oklahoma State, they have had the following totals from their running back positions: 82 yards vs. West Virginia, 68 vs. TCU, 112 vs. Kansas, 30 vs. Iowa State, 60 vs. Oklahoma, 61 vs. Texas and 31 vs. Kansas State.

In a time when the Red Raiders desperately needed the running game to take some of the pressure off of back QB Jett Duffey, the offensive line has been physically dominated by a collection of teams (outside of Iowa State) that are not known for being particularly good against the run.

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That makes this weekend’s game against Baylor much more unpredictable.  The Bears have the worst rush defense in the Big 12 allowing 181 yards per game and 5.1 yards per carry.

But there is no reason to believe that this offensive line can take over the game this week any more than they have since Tech ran for 224 yards in Stillwater.   Baylor will certainly stuff the box with extra defenses to protect against the run given the situation the Red Raiders face at quarterback.  So even though Tech should be able to run against the only team in the league that is giving up 5 yards per carry, there is no reason to be confident that they will finally be able to get the ground game going this week.

Much of the blame must fall at the feet of offensive coordinator Kevin Johns.  He was brought in this offseason because of his reputation for being able to run the football out of the spread offense.

While coordinating the offense for Indiana in 2015, he had two running backs eclipse the 1,000-yard mark while his quarterback threw for over 3,000 yards.  And last season, his Western Michigan offense ranked 21st in the nation on the ground chewing up 224.8 yards per game.

But this year, his influence has been negligible as Tech continues to be ineffective on the ground unless it has been thanks to the legs of Jett Duffey.  The other coach on the staff that deserves come criticism is offensive line coach Brandon Jones.

In his second year with the Red Raiders, Jones’ offensive line has regressed despite entering the season with 96 combined starts.  The team is only marginally better when it comes to sacks allowed this season giving up 2.03 per game this year as opposed to 2.33 per game last year and far too often during this losing streak, the Texas Tech quarterbacks have been under pressure.

In each of the past two games, Tech has given up four sacks.  That combined with a bevy of penalties and other mistakes, such as numerous bad snaps, has only served to further exasperate the problems of the Red Raider offense as it has to adjust to life with its backup quarterback.

And truth-be-told, the reason the Red Raiders are in this mess at the quarterback position to begin with is because the offensive line.  Against West Virginia, Alan Bowman was under assault throughout the first half and when his offensive line allowed two rushers to sandwich him in the pocket, the beginnings of the team’s quarterback issues were born in earnest.

It has been easy to see how quarterback injuries have caused this football season to fall off a cliff.  But do not lose sight of the fact that the most under-performing position group on this team has been the offensive line, which could have helped right the ship but instead only made the team’s struggles worse as the season progressed.