Texas Tech football: What Alan Bowman has to prove in 2020

If Alan Bowman is going to become the next great QB for the Texas Tech football program, he’s going to have to prove ready by doing the following in 2020.

One unintended consequence of the current coronavirus shutdown is that the college football offseason is on indefinite hiatus as far as team activities and workouts go.  That makes it far more likely that redshirt sophomore QB Alan Bowman will be the Texas Tech football team’s starting quarterback in 2020.

Prior to the suspension of spring practices early last month, it was believed that Bowman and redshirt freshman Maverick McIvor would be engaged in a true QB competition for the starting job.  What’s more, some expected true freshman Donovan Smith to factor into the race as well, though his arrival on campus was not supposed to happen until summer.

Now, it’s hard to imagine either of those players challenging Bowman.  The Grapevine, Texas native is now into his third calendar year on campus and though he and McIvor have the same amount of time in the current offensive system, Bowman is the only scholarship QB on the roster to have taken a single snap in an actual game or even in a spring scrimmage.

In two years, we’ve seen only 11 games from the talented passer.  What’s more, of those, he’s completed only 9, and given that he came off the sidelines in his college debut, only eight times has he started a game and not left due to injury.

But what he’s done in that small sample size has been impressive.  For his career, he’s thrown for 3,658 yards, (332.5 per game), with 23 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.  Meanwhile, his career passer efficiency rating is 149.7.

What’s more, his stats in the eight games he’s started and completed are even more noteworthy. Passing for 2,015 yards 19 TDS, 9 INT in those games, he’s averaged 379.3 yards passing.

Six times already, he’s topped the 300-yard mark.  That includes two games over 400 yards and an astounding 605-yard performance against Houston.

That game in week three of 2018 was just his second career start as a Red Raider and it broke Pat Mahomes’ record for yards by a Big 12 freshman in one game.  That afternoon in Lubbock, Bowman was 43-59 (72.9%) with five touchdowns and no picks.

The problem though is that injuries have kept his star from rising to the heights that most expected he would attain prior to his first injury.  Now, he is tasked with trying to regain his place as the leader of his team and proving to be one of the top QBs in the Big 12 after missing all but three games in 2019.

In other words, there’s quite a bit for Bowman to prove.  So let’s look at what we need to see from Tech’s presumed starter in 2020.