Texas Tech football: Recent plays that were gut-punches to Red Raider fans

Alan Bowman’s goal-line carry vs. OU

While the rest of the plays we will discuss had an indisputable impact on the outcome of the game, you will have to allow me some liberties on this first play.  Though we will never know for certain, almost any Texas Tech football fan believes that had Alan Bowman not been injured just before halftime of last year’s game against OU, the Red Raiders would have pulled off the upset in Lubbock.

With 1:12 to go in the first half, Tech trailed the No. 7 Sooners 28-24.  On first-and-goal from the OU five, Kingsbury made one of the most foolish calls of his career, he asked Alan Bowman to run a QB keeper, designed as a sweep to the left.

Awkwardly trying to avoid a defender near the sideline, Bowman was held up the the initial tackler allowing a second OU pursuer to deliver a clean shot to his chest just five weeks after he had suffered a collapsed lung against West Virginia.  It would be the final play of Bowman’s season as he went down with his second collapsed lung of the year.

What made this decision all the more puzzling was that Tech was gashing Oklahoma on the ground with Da’Leon Ward running for 32 yards on the previous play.  There was no reason not to give the ball right back to the sophomore RB and let him pound the ball into the end zone, rather than putting Bowman in harm’s way.

In the second half, Tech’s offense sputtered with Jett Duffey taking over at QB.  The Red Raiders punted on their first three possessions of the second half but the defense kept OU at bay allowing only one touchdown in their first four possessions out of the locker room.

Had Kingsbury not made sure an ill-advised choice to have his already injured pocket-passing QB run a designed sweep for the first time as a collegiate, there’s reason to believe that Tech could have put some distance between itself and the Sooners in the second half as the Red Raider defense finally started coming up with stops.  But instead, Tech fell 51-46 in another empty moral victory at home.

What’s more, Tech certainly would not have lost its next four games to go 0-5 down the stretch to finish at 5-7 had Bowman been able to finish the season.  This is a play that we may ultimately look back on as one that will forever shape the history of Red Raider football.  By putting his best player at risk unnecessarily, Kingsbury took a gamble that did not pay off and which ultimately cost his his job at his alma mater.