Texas Tech football: 5 plays that defined 2019 for the Red Raiders
Alan Bowman injured vs. Arizona
We will go through these plays chronologically because they build upon one another to tell the full story of the season. And the first time 2019 took a turn came in week-three against Arizona when Alan Bowman was lost for the season in a 28-14 defeat.
On 3rd-and-10 at the Arizona 39-yard-line and Tech trailing 13-7 with 13:22 to go in the third quarter, Bowman was hit and driven to the ground by a late blitzing linebacker who came unblocked when center Dawson Deaton decided to help left guard Madison Akamnonu.
Making the third start of his career at center, Deaton didn’t need to help his left guard on that play because the senior Akamnonu had his man under control. Deaton simply needed to stay home and when he didn’t the linebacker had a free run at Bowman.
One aspect of this play that stands out when watching it again after three months is that there has to be some discussion as to whether Arizona LB Tony Fields II should have been flagged for driving Bowman into the turf. That would not have prevented the injury but would have kept a promising possession alive in what was a one-score game at the time.
The referee on the play, Mike Defee, came over the speakers to say that he was not flagging Bowman for intentional grounding as the Red Raider QB was able to get the pass away to the feet of SaRodorick Thompson and avoid a sack. But Tech fans want to know why Fields wasn’t penalized for leaving his feet and putting the entirety of his body weight onto Bowman as he drove him to the turf. We’ve seen far less egregious hits called personal fouls by Defee himself but on this play, one in which the QB was injured by being driven to the ground, he took no action.
We all know how this play shaped the course of the season. Bowman would not return and the door was eventually opened for Jett Duffey to start the final eight games.
But think about how it has shaped the future of the program. After starting 8 games, Duffey is now in the transfer portal because he believes that he should be given assurances of the starting job by Wells and that’s not something he’s going to receive.
Meanwhile, this play also took Bowman from being the unquestioned future of this program to being in a place where he will have to fight for his job once again this year, even without Duffey as his main competition. What’s more, this play is when Bowman picked up the label (perhaps unfairly) of being injury-prone.
What was amazing is that on the next drive, the sophomore returned to the field and led his team on a TD drive, one he capped with a beautiful throw to McLane Mannix. But it would be the last TD Bowman threw in 2019 and now, we enter 2020 with as many questions as we’ve ever had at the QB spot.