Texas Tech football must have better QB play away from Lubbock

As the Texas Tech football team prepares to open Big 12 play with two of its first three games on the road, it is clear that the Red Raiders need better QB play away from Lubbock than they’ve had in recent games.

The true measure of a good team is its ability to win games away from home. That’s something the Texas Tech football program has done fairly well in recent seasons despite being far from what most would consider a quality program.

In fact, almost all of the most impressive wins the Red Raiders earned during the Kliff Kingsbury era came away from Jones Stadium. Those include 2015’s wins at Arkansas and Texas, 2016’s win at TCU, 2017’s wins at Arizona State and Texas, and last season’s victory at Oklahoma State.

But since the start of last season, the Red Raiders have seen their QB play dip significantly when playing away from Lubbock, regardless of who the QB has been. Last week’s loss to Arizona brought Tech’s record over the last two seasons in venues other than The Jones to just 2-5.

In those games, Tech has started three different QBs, McLane Carter, Alan Bowman, and Jett Duffey; all of whom made at least two starts. As a group, they’ve completed just 188 of 308 passes (61%) for an average of 279.7 yards while scoring 22.2 points per game and throwing a total of eleven interceptions.

By contrast, at home since the start of last season, Tech’s QBs have completed 277 of 380 passes (72.8%), while putting up 433.1 yards per game and leading the team to 48.1 points per outing while being picked off just five times. And it hasn’t mattered whether it’s been Bowman or Duffey (Carter never made a start in Lubbock) running the show, the road and home splits have been dramatically different.

Bowman has played in just four road games making three starts. He’s averaged just 61.7% passing in those games and his three lowest completion percentages in games that he did not leave early with an injury have come away from Jones Stadium.

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What’s more, the sophomore is throwing for just 326 yards per game on the road, which is a few yards shy of his career average of 331.3. Interestingly though, his four road games comprise the number 4, 5, 6, and 8 games of his career in terms of yards through the air rather than sitting near the bottom of his career list of games as one might expect.

Interceptions have also been problematic for Bowman when he’s left Lubbock. For his career, he’s been picked off ten times with seven coming on the road. In fact, in all three of his true road starts (at Oklahoma State and Iowa State last year, and at Arizona this year) he’s been intercepted at least twice. The only time he hasn’t been a victim of larceny outside of the 806 came in his debut last year in Houston when he was thrust into action against Ole Miss after Carter was injured.

But at home, he’s been a football god. Completing 72.4% of his passes, he’s averaged 348.7 yards and helped lead his team to a stunning 50.8 points per game. And when you take out the two home games that he was unable to finish due to injury, he’s putting up 398.2 yards per game.

However, there’s even more polarity in Duffey’s home and road stats. That’s something Tech fans certainly want to be aware of with Bowman injured and Duffey almost guaranteed to see some time in his absence.

At home, Duffey has been a pretty good QB. In the four home games since the start of 2018 in which the junior has thrown more than five passes, Duffey has been a 67.1% passer.

In his only home start to date, he had his best career showing with 444 yards, four touchdowns and only one pick against a good Texas defense last November. If you take what he’s averaged per half of play in the three games in which he’s seen meaningful snaps (he played the second half against West Virginia and Oklahoma last fall) and project that out over the course of three full games, he would be throwing for around 350 yards per game.

On the road though, he’s been absolutely dreadful. Last year, he made two starts away from home, at TCU and at Kansas State, going 1-1.

In Tech’s 17-14 win in Fort Worth, Duffey was a liability with his arm. He completed just 13 of 24 passes (54%) for 190 yards, a touchdown, and an interception. But to his credit, he made the game-winning score with his legs when he scampered 36 yards for a fourth-quarter TD to put Tech up for good.

In Manhattan, he was slowed by a torn meniscus which would keep him out of the season finale against Baylor the next week. On a miserably cold and rainy day, Duffey was fairly accurate completing 19 of 27 passes (70%) but he threw for just 150 yards, no touchdowns, and two picks.

Overall, away from the friendly confines of The Jones, Duffey is completing 62% of his passes for an average of merely 170 yards while providing just two total touchdowns and being intercepted three times. That’s not going to cut it.

The timetable for Bowman’s return is uncertain but the most optimistic projections have him coming back in six to eight weeks. If Bowman misses the next six games, that means that Duffey and grad transfer Jackson Tyner, who has started just three career games as a collegiate (all at Rice), will be tasked with leading the Red Raiders on the road in four of those games (at Oklahoma, Baylor, Kansas, and West Virginia).

There is never an ideal time to lose your starting QB but facing a stretch where you will play at home only twice between September 14 and November 9th is about as poor of timing as you could draw up. In order for Matt Wells’ team to survive this difficult stretch in his first season, he’s going to need one of his two backup QBs to play well on the road, which is something we haven’t seen from any Red Raider QB all that often in the last two seasons.