Texas Tech football: 4 players Red Raiders can’t lose this season

This year, the Texas Tech football team can’t afford injuries to these key players if a return to bowl eligibility is to be in the cards.

Sometimes the biggest key to a team’s success is something that no one can control, health.  Texas Tech football fans certainly learned first hand last fall how injuries can derail a season.

In fact, it took only until the team’s third offensive series of the year for an injury to completely change the course of the season and ultimately the course of the program.  When starting QB McLane Carter was lost to a high ankle sprain in the first quarter of the Ole Miss game, the Alan Bowman era of the program began sooner than anyone ever imagined it would.

The good news was that Bowman proved to be more than ready to handle the starting role guiding his team to wins in its next three games.  During that time, he threw for 1,493 yards and nine touchdowns with only two interceptions.

That included a Big 12 freshman single-game record 605 yards against Houston and 397 yards at Oklahoma State to lead Tech to its first win in Stillwater since 2001.  But after Bowman went down with a collapsed lung in the West Virginia game, the Red Raiders’ season took a turn for the worse.

In all, Bowman started and finished only five games last fall.  That is just one more than the combined number of full games that Carter or third-string QB Jett Duffey played.  And comparing the stats from those ten games is a rather eye-opening experience.

In Bowman’s five games, he averaged 403 passing yards, 2.6 passing touchdowns and only 1.2 interceptions per game.  Tech averaged 36.6 points in those games, with the fewest being the 31 the Red Raiders put up against ISU.

Meanwhile, in the four Duffey/Carter games, Tech averaged 263.2 passing yards, 1.2 passing touchdowns and 2.2 interceptions per game.  The team’s scoring average in those games fell to just 20.2 points per game, which included 17 points against TCU and just six against Kansas State.

What’s also interesting is to examine the impact Bowman had on the Red Raider ground game.  Tech averaged 145.8 yards per game on the ground in the freshman’s five starts while putting up just 105.7 in the four full gems he missed despite the fact that Duffey’s strength is his ability to scramble.

In fairness, the Red Raiders had an atrocious 30 rushing yards against Iowa State in Bowman’s final full game.  But They put up just 30 against Kansas State and 100 against Baylor, two of the worst rushing defenses in the Big 12 last year with Bowman on the sidelines.

So it should go without saying that Bowman is the one single player that Matt Wells’ team can’t afford to lose this fall.  But last year, there were other injuries that impacted the team.

For instance, safety Jah’Shawn Johnson missed the first four games of the season as his recovery from offseason shoulder surgery took longer than expected.  What’s more, before the season even began, Tech lost presumed starting corner Octavius Morgan, who tore a knee ligament in the first fall scrimmage.

Other players such as receiver T.J. Vasher, left tackle Travis Bruffy, center Paul Stawarz, left guard Jacob Hines, and LB Dakota Allen were among the group of players to miss at least one start.  Because the Tech roster is rather thin, short-term injuries can have a more devastating impact on the Red Raiders than blue-blood programs like Alabama or Oklahoma that have four and five-star players as backups.

That will be the case again this year as the Red Raiders have to find a way to navigate through the season in relatively good health because of a roster that lacks the type of depth that would help soften the blow of a critical injury.  So let’s take a look at the four players other than Bowman that Tech most needs to stay healthy this year in order to return to postseason play.