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Texas Tech football: How Alan Bowman stacked up against other FR QBs in 2018

By Matthew Conner

LUBBOCK, TX - OCTOBER 20: Alan Bowman #10 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders calls signals at the line of scrimmage during the first half of the game against the Kansas Jayhawks on October 20, 2018 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TX - OCTOBER 20: Alan Bowman #10 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders calls signals at the line of scrimmage during the first half of the game against the Kansas Jayhawks on October 20, 2018 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) /

Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence

If you weren’t already tired of hearing about Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence at the end of last year, you will be by the time he heads to the NFL after next season.  But there’s no denying that he was the best freshman QB in the nation last year, if not the best freshman QB we have ever seen.

But unlike Bowman, there was tremendous hype about the Georgia product who was rated as the No. 1 player in the nation and the No. 6 high school player of all time by 247Sports, which rated him a 0.999 on a scale of 1.000.

Earning the starting job for the Tigers in the fifth game of the year, Lawrence threw for 3,280 yards, 30 touchdowns, and only four interceptions.  And oh yeah, he also led his team to the national title.

In the championship game, he diced up Alabama to the tune of  347 yards and four touchdowns.  But while Bowman obviously does not have that type of bullet point on his resume, statistically his numbers are in the same ballpark.

Bowman averaged over 111 yards more per game through the air and just 0.2 yards per pass attempt less than Lawrence’s 8.26 showing that both players pushed the ball down the field with regularity.  And Lawrence finished with a QB rating of 157, just seven points higher than Bowman’s QBR.

Maybe the greatest difference between the two is in the interceptions where Lawrence averaged just one pick per every 99.2 passes and Bowman averaged one per every 46.  But some of that has to be attributed to the overall talent that Clemson possessed on offense as Lawrence was asked to throw the ball only 26.4 times per game, over 14 fewer attempts than Bowman averaged.

In other words, Tech had to throw it and defenses knew it so they could dedicate their entire scheme to taking away what Bowman did best.  Clemson did not have that problem as they Travis Etienne in the backfield rushing for 1,658 yards and 24 touchdowns.  Bowman had either Da’Leon Ward or Ta’Zhawn Henry who each managed just 341 yards, just 20% of Etienne’s total.

In the end, Lawrence deserves all the praise and hype that he is getting.  He is the best QB in the county.  But because Alan Bowman had comparable and in some cases, better stats, he should be getting more notoriety himself.

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