Texas Tech football: Ranking the offensive position groups

Ranking the Texas Tech football team’s offensive position groups shows that there is quite a divide in experience and accomplishment between the top two groups and the bottom two.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the upcoming Texas Tech football season will be seeing how the offense will change under the guidance of new offensive coordinator David Yost.  In fact, many are saying that the “Air Raid” era of the program is now over.

This isn’t to say that the Red Raiders are going to go to a triple-option offense or operate out of the wishbone.  Yost will still utilize the spread formation and we can expect the Red Raiders to put up plenty of points.

Last season, Yost’s offense at Utah State averaged 47.5 points per game, second-most in the nation behind only Oklahoma. What’s more, the Aggies were an explosive offensive team as suggested by the fact that they ranked No. 3 overall in points per play at 0.66.

Prior to last fall, Yosts’s most recent stint as an offensive coordinator came at Missouri from 2001-10.  In the last eight years of his time in Columbia, Yost’s offenses put up 30.8 points per game in an era before he began to utilize the up-tempo offense that he picked up while quarterbacks coach at Oregon in 2016.  What’s more, twice in his time at Missouri, Yost produced a top-20 scoring offense that averaged over 40 points per game.

But why most believe that the “Air Raid” era at Texas Tech is now over is because Yost has proven to be more interested in a balanced offensive attack than any OC in the last 20 years of the program.  Last year, Utah State ran the ball 18 times more than they threw it, something that might seem strange to a generation of Red Raider fans that are too young to remember the Spike Dykes era.

What’s more, Yost had his offense run the ball 54.2% of the time in 2018, the 59th-highest percentage of any team in the country.  Meanwhile, Tech ran the ball only 42.2% of the time, less than all but three teams.

What’s more, when the Aggies ran the ball, they were impressive.  Averaging 5.3 yards per carr, USU ranked 17th overall in the nation.  Additionally, their 192.9 yards per game on the ground ranked 42nd.

It would seem doubtful to assume that Tech will have the ability to repeat that success on the ground in year-one of the Matt Wells era.  After all, the Red Raiders averaged just 120.1 rushing yards per game in 2018, good for just No. 116 overall.

This year, Tech will return almost all of the key contributors to last year’s anemic rushing attack.  What’s more, transition years almost never see teams implement their new schemes at an elite level, especially when the scheme is significantly different from the previous staff’s offense.

In the end, Red Raider fans will welcome victories, regardless of how they arrive.  Still, there is enough talent on the offensive side of the ball for the Red Raiders to be able to once again light up the scoreboard.  Here’s a look at how the offensive position groups stack up from strongest to weakest.