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Texas Tech football: These players must be better in 2019

By Matthew Conner

HOUSTON, TX - SEPTEMBER 01: A.J. Brown #1 of the Mississippi Rebels catches a pass behid Justus Parker #31 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders and runs in for a 34 yard score in the fourth quarter at NRG Stadium on September 1, 2018 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images)
HOUSTON, TX - SEPTEMBER 01: A.J. Brown #1 of the Mississippi Rebels catches a pass behid Justus Parker #31 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders and runs in for a 34 yard score in the fourth quarter at NRG Stadium on September 1, 2018 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by John Weast/Getty Images)
(Photo by John Weast/Getty Images) /

RB – Ta’Zhawn Henry

The Red Raider ground game is going to be featured more prominently this season than we have seen in close to two decades.  But for that to yield the desired results, Tech is going to need far more production from its running backs.

Last year, the Red Raiders were led in rushing by backup QB Jett Duffey, wha made only three starts.  That is unacceptable for a Power 5 program.

Tech needs its leading returning RB Ta’Zhawn Henry to take his game to the next level this fall after a true freshman season that was promising at times but was also inconsistent.

The 5-foot-7, 170-pounder ran for 341 yards and eight touchdowns on 86 carries last year.  He had four games with double-digit carries but seemed to fade as the season progressed.

Early in the season, it looked like he was ready to break out after running for 111 yards and four touchdowns in week-three against Houston. But that proved to be his only 100-yard game of the season.

In fact, in the other ten games, he averaged just 23 yards per game.  What’s more, there were four games in which he failed to run for more than 10 yards.

In fairness, much of that was due to the ineptitude of the offensive line, which was one of the worst run-blocking units in the country.  And in the final three games of the year, he was given only eight total carries.

But you have to wonder if that decline was in response to a lack of performance on the practice field or something else that the coaches saw to prompt them to stop featuring Henry.  Certainly, if he would have been the best alternative to carry the ball, the Kingsbury staff would have fed him the rock given the desperate state of the offense which sputtered down the stretch after Alan Bowman’s second injury.

This year, Henry will be part of a three-headed attack with Shnye and redshirt freshman SaRodorick Thompson.  He is the best hone-run threat of that trio and he could give the offense an explosive weapon on the ground if he is able to take a step forward in his second season.

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