Texas Tech football: Pat Mahomes’ success won’t help Red Raider football

Texas Tech football fans who believe that the success of Pat Mahomes in the NFL will significantly boost Red Raider football are going to be disappointed.

Having been in Lubbock twice over the last week for the basketball games against Kentucky and West Virginia, it’s fair to say that Pat Mahomes mania has taken over the Hub City. In fact, given that every fifth person in West Texas now sports a No. 15 Kansas City Cheifs jersey we might as well just name the town Mahomesville. But Texas Tech football fans that think Mahomes’ NFL success is going to help his alma mater are going to be disappointed.

The truth is that there have been tons of legendary QBs or Super Bowl MVPs that came from mid-level college football programs and their success in the NFL hasn’t done a thing for their schools. For instance, take Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers.

Thought to be a sure-fire Hall of Famer and one of the top QBs in the game for the last decade-plus, he is a product of Cal. Red Raider fans certainly remember that he was the starter for the Golden Bears in the 2004 Holiday Bowl that No. 4 Cal lost to Sonny Cumbie and the Red Raiders.

That year. Cal finished 10-2 and No. 9 in the nation. Since then, that program has had just one more 10-win season (2006) and six losing seasons. What’s more, Cal is now on its third head coach since 2004, a sign that life in Berkley hasn’t been too bountiful since Rodgers’ career.

Don’t forget that another current star NFL QB, Jared Goff, is also a Cal alum. Leading the Los Angeles Rams to last year’s Super Bowl, he’s the second Golden Beard QB to make a huge name for himself on Sundays.

But in the wake of his success, Cal’s recruiting hasn’t taken any significant step forward. From 2016-19, the Cal recruiting classes were ranked on average 46.5th overall in the nation. That included No. 70 in America and last in the PAC 12 in 2017, a time when you would think a possible Goff recruiting bump might be in full effect.

Those numbers sound incredibly similar to the type of rankings most Texas Tech classes usually earn. In fact, in the 2018 recruiting cycle, Tech had the No. 72 class in the country and worst in the Big 12, two years after Pat Mahomes’ final season in Lubbock.

Many people believe that this offseason (or next) Mahomes will become the NFL’s first $200 million player. That might make some think of Matt Ryan, a former NFL MVP for the Atlanta Falcons who became the first player in NFL history to average $30 million per season when he signed his landmark deal in 2018.

Like Mahomes, Ryan is a product of a middling program from a Power 5 conference, Boston College. He led the Eagles to an 11-3 season in 2007 and a trip to the ACC Title Game. But in the last nine years, BC has won no more than seven games in a season. What’s more, they have produced seasons of just two, three, and four wins in that time.

Mahomes is the odds-on favorite to win the Super Bowl 54 MVP Award. Even if he does, don’t expect Tech to benefit all that much.

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For proof, look at two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning’s alma mater Ole Miss. The recently-retired former Rebel led the Giants from 2004-19 and twice led upsets of the mighty New England Patriots.

But though he’s been the biggest thing to come out of Oxford since his father Archie in the 1960s, his success didn’t trickle back down to the school that has made its on-campus speed limit match his father’s old jersey number, 18 mph. In fact, the three years right after Manning left town, Ole Miss failed to produce more than four wins in a season.

Interestingly, the only time Ole Miss has had success since Manning’s time was when former head coach Hugh Freeze and his staff were violating NCAA rules so severely that the program suffered significant sanctions.

The point is Red Raider fans, don’t count on Mahomes’ success benefitting Texas Tech one bit. Will it be cool to hear “Texas Tech” mentioned on the Super Bowl broadcast? Sure. Is it fun to see that the best player in the NFL is a Red Raider? Of course. Do we want Pat to win because he’s a vocal alum and a great guy? Without question.

However, for fans like me who generally lose almost all passion for players once their touchdowns and sacks stop leading to Red Raider wins, seeing Mahomes win a Super Bowl isn’t going to bring tears of joy.

The head coach that recruited and developed Mahomes is gone, as are just about anyone else who had anything to do with his time in Lubbock. Perhaps were Kingsbury still at the helm of the program, Mahomes’ success might trickle down to his former school. But Matt Wells had less to do with Mahomes than even the fans who cheered him on when he was trying to single-handedly lift a team with the worst defense in the nation to respectability.

Still, over the next few days and weeks, we are going to be innundated with propaganda from the Red Raider football program about Mahomes and if he wins the MVP, they might rename the entire university after him. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Masked Rider statue behind the Frazier Alumni Pavilion recast to put Mahomes atop of the horse.

However, wise fans will know that Texas Tech football will benefit about as much from Mahomes’ success as any other program of a similar pedigree has benefitted from the achievements of their star alums in the NFL, which is to say not at all. While the merchandise retailers in Lubbock are enjoying a windfall thanks to the racks and racks of Mahomes gear, that’s about all the boost Lubbock will get from Mahomes mania. Texas Tech’s true time to profit off of him has already been wasted.