Texas Tech football: Alan Bowman woefully underrated heading into 2019

As we look towards the 2019 college football season, it is becoming clear that the rest of the country is vastly underrating Alan Bowman, who has all the makings of the next legendary Texas Tech football star.

Memorial Day weekend has arrived which means summer is upon us. So get ready for cookouts, sunburns, mosquitoes and the flood of offseason college football team and player rankings that help media outlets survive the dogs days until kickoff. And as many of the Big 12 offseason rankings articles are released, it is becoming clear that just like the entire Texas Tech football team, Red Raider QB Alan Bowman is being vastly overlooked.

Last year, Bowman was thrust into action in the first game of his true freshman campaign when McLane Carter left the season opener against Ole Miss in the first quarter with a sprained ankle. And in facing an SEC defense in his first action as a collegiate, all Bowman did was throw for 273 yards and a touchdown in just over three quarters while completing 59.2% of his passes and throwing no interceptions.

That was the beginning of the Alan Bowman era as he finished the year with 2,638 yards, 17 touchdowns, 7 interceptions and a 69.4% completion percentage in just eight games. Ultimately, he put up a better completion percentage than Patrick Mahomes ever did as a collegiate while also being more accurate in his first year as a starter than Graham Harrell, Kliff Kingsbury or Baker Mayfield were in their first seasons as starters.

And one must assume that if he were to have played more than five full games last fall, he would be the Big 12 version of Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence. But what he showed in his eight appearances was enough for Red Raider fans to feel confident that he will be the next great Red Raider quarterback.

However, it appears that the rest of the country is less certain. That’s because Bowman is being ranked far too low in almost every ranking of Big 12 quarterbacks.

For instance, Athlon Sports ranks Bowman the No. 5 QB in the Big 12. And the five that are behind him were all either part-time starters last year or were not with their current program in 2018.

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Meanwhile, CBSSports lists Bowman as a tier-IV QB nationally. That puts him in the same category as the QB’s from such powerhouse programs as Navy, Temple, UAB and UNLV. And 247Sports.com did not include him in their list of the 25 best QB’s in the nation.

But far too many of these projections are based on last season’s cumulative stats, which hurts Bowman because he did not have the benefit of a full 12-games played. Still, he finished 6th in the conference in passing yards and touchdowns.

When you break down what Bowman and his fellow Big 12 QB’s did last year on a per-game basis, a much different picture begins to emerge. His 329.7 passing yards per game was below only three other QB’s in the nation and led the Big 12. What’s more, his QB rating of 150.1 is second-highest of any returning Big 12 passer.

Thus, it seems difficult to understand why so many are ranking Bowman as just a mid-tier Big 12 QB this year. Let’s look at how he stacks up against some of the QB’s listed ahead of him.

It is becoming apparent that Texas QB Sam Ehlinger is going to be the preseason Big 12 Player of the Year. But last year, he trailed Bowman in several key categories including completion percentage (69.4% for Bowman to 64.7% from Ehlinger), passing yards per game, (329.7 to 235.1) yards per attempt (8.1 to 7.7) and QB rating (150.1 to 146.8).

Where Ehlinger was better was in taking care of the football by throwing two fewer picks in six more games played. He was also a terrific weapon on the ground rushing for 482 yards and 16 touchdowns, something that is not part of Bowman’s game.

But still, his total offensive output when including his rushing totals was sixty yards per game lower than Bowman’s. And of course, we know that Ehlinger is benefitting from the annual media bias that is given towards the Longhorns, which is never something that seems to be granted to a Texas Tech QB.

Speaking of media bias, how about the assumption that OU transfer QB Jalen Hurts is going to be a better QB than Bowman in 2019? Certainly, he will be playing for Lincoln Riley, the offensive genius du jour in college football and he will have the best set of receivers and running backs in the conference, if not the nation.

But Hurts has never proven to be an elite passer, even when surrounded by NFL talent and 5-star recruits at Alabama. Despite playing on the most talented team in the nation, he completed just 61.9% of his passes in his two seasons as a stater at Bama.

And he never became a reliable passer down field, which is something that OU has thrived on in the last two years when producing Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks. According to CFB Film Room, in 2017, he was just 13-39 (33.3%) on passes over 20 yards or longer. In fact, in only three of nine passing windows on the field was he in the top 25th percentile as a passer.

Here's the final passing chart for Alabama QB Jalen Hurts. Very inconsistent numbers at all levels of the field. pic.twitter.com/iaLyaZKbMZ
— CFB Film Room (@CFBFilmRoom) January 12, 2018

Others still are pointing towards Baylor’s Charlie Brewer, who has made the wounded duck pass stylish in Waco, as the under the radar Big 12 QB to watch this fall. But last season, he threw for just 381 more yards and two more touchdowns than Bowan did despite playing in five more games. What’s more, he completed 68.1% of his passes, which was lower than Bowman’s 69.4%.

And as a true freshman in 2017, Brewer passed for 1,076 fewer yards and six fewer touchdowns than Bowman did last fall (both QB’s played in eight games in their first collegiate seasons). If the old college adage about a player making his greatest gains from his freshman to sophomore season holds true for Bowman, his sophomore stats will likely dwarf Brewer’s 2018 numbers and he will almost certainly outperform the Baylor junior straight up in 2019.

If there is any QB in the Big 12 who seems to match up well with Bowman statistically, it may be Iowa State’s sophomore Brock Purdy who completed 66.4% of his passes last year while averaging 10.4 yards per attempt. But in two more games played than Bowman in 2018, he threw for 388 fewer yards and one fewer touchdown. And it will be interesting to see how well he performs this year after losing his top wide receiver in Hakeem Nicks and the running back around which the ISU offense was built, David Montgomery.

Alan Bowman came from nowhere in his true freshman season. After being baptized by fire in his first ever collegiate game, he flashed the type of moxie and precision passing that was reminiscent of a young Graham Harrell. Whether he is able to lift Red Raider football to the heights Harrell did a decade ago is yet to be seen but Bowman has already shown enough to be considered one of the Big 12’s best QB.