Texas Tech football: Ranking our confidence in each offensive position group

Texas Tech football is synonymous with offense so let’s rank the position groups on that side of the ball by how confident we are in them heading into 2020.

Sometimes it is actually good to be offensive.  That’s what the Texas Tech football program has been for the last 20 years as the scoreboard at Jones Stadium has run through light bulbs faster than ever before.

In fact, the current offensive revolution that has swept across all levels of football, even the NFL, can be traced back to Texas Tech.  Once Mike Leach arrived in 2000 and implemented his “Air Raid” offense, the entire identity of the program changed and soon teams across the nation were trying to copy Leach’s blueprint.

That’s why the current Mississippi State head coach has one of the most impressive coaching trees in the sport.  Such Leach protegees as Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley, Houston’s Dana Holgorsen, North Texas’ Seth Littrell, the Arizona Cardinals’ Kliff Kingsbury, Incarnate Word’s Eric Morris, Baylor’s Art Briles, and SMU’s Sonny Dykes have gone on to head coaching careers after spending time under Leach as either players or assistants, or as both.

What’s more, his list of former players turned assistant coaches continues to grow.  Former QB Graham Harrell is now the offensive coordinator at USC while Sonny Cumbie is in the same role at TCU.  And Joel Filani, who played WR for Leach at Tech, is the wide receivers coach at his alma mater.  Meanwhile, Wes Welker is on the coaching staff of the San Francisco 49ers.

That’s proof of just how impactful Texas Tech has been in shaping the landscape of the football world over the last two decades.  Once the points started to pile up and the wins started to grow more and more prominent, the rest of the sport took notice.

Though Leach has been gone for over a decade, the identity of Texas Tech football has remained the same; offense, offense, offense.  In fact, Leach’s first year, 2000, was the last time Tech averaged fewer than 30 points per game.

During that span, there have been four different head coaches and numerous obstacles that could have slowed the offense.  For instance, in 2013, the Red Raiders had to start a true freshman at QB in every game.  Still, that season they ranked 23rd nationally at 35.8 p.p.g.

Of course, in each of the last two seasons, Tech has started three different QBs.  Still, the worst the program has ranked in terms of total offense was this season at 30.5 p.p.g., good for No. 53 nationally.

So much will be expected of the Red Raider offense again this fall.  Seeing points come in bunches has become a birthright of Tech football fans and there is no reason to believe that will change once the upcoming season kicks off.

But there are some serious question marks about specific position groups.  So let’s rank each of those by how confident we are in them on a scale from 1-10 with 10 being the most confident we can be.  And we will begin with the position group that just recently returned to the South Plains.