Texas Tech football: Jett Duffey’s best games as a Red Raider

No. 4: vs. TCU 2019

If there was a game that seemed as if it were primed for Duffey to single-handedly carry his team to a win, it would have been this fall’s 33-31 loss to TCU in Lubbock.  But a late McLane Mannix fumble on the Red Raiders’ final drive robbed Duffey of any chance to be the hero.

But were it not for Duffey’s arm, Tech would never have been close enough to even threaten the Frogs in a game that the Red Raiders began in a 17-0 hole.  Part of that poor start included an INT on the second series of the game on a throw that Wells later said was late.

But the tide turned in the second quarter as Duffey led his team to 16 points by scoring on three of four possessions in that period.  That included a touchdown pass to Dalton Rigdon of 26 yards and one to R.J. Turner for 70 yards.

In the third quarter, he threw two more touchdowns, a 3-yarder to Turner and a 33-yarder to Ezukanma to give Tech a brief 28-27 lead.  But in the final frame, he and the offense came up with just one field goal on three possessions.

This is was far too often what the Jett Duffey experience was.  He put up nice numbers (333 yards and 4 TDs) to keep his team in the game but only once did he make a game-winning play in crunch time and that came in 2018 when he actually had a terrible game against TCU but managed to score the game-winning TD on a 36-yard scramble.

It was far more common though for Duffey to get his team on the cusp of victory only to fall short as he did against TCU this fall.  Perhaps if a few more of those close calls had gone his way, he might not have felt the need to transfer.