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Texas Tech football: The top Red Raider from each season of the Big 12 era

By Matthew Conner

ARLINGTON, TX - NOVEMBER 25: Patrick Mahomes II #5 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders warming up before the game against the Baylor Bears on November 25, 2016 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Texas Tech defeated Baylor 54-35. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images)
ARLINGTON, TX - NOVEMBER 25: Patrick Mahomes II #5 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders warming up before the game against the Baylor Bears on November 25, 2016 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Texas Tech defeated Baylor 54-35. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images) /
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Head coach Kliff Kingsbury of the Texas Tech Red Raiders. (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images)
Head coach Kliff Kingsbury of the Texas Tech Red Raiders. (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images) /

2002: Kingsbury

Finally, we have come to a season when the QB was the best player on the Texas Tech football team.  In the third season of Mike Leach’s “Air Raid” offense, senior QB Kliff Kingsbury exploded onto the national scene and became the first superstar passer the program had produced since the 1970s.

After averaging 3,460 yards passing and 23 TDs in the first two years of the Leach era, Kingsbury went off for 5,017 yards and 45 TDs in 2002.  Both were program records at the time and he was awarded first-team All-Big 12 honors for his efforts.  He also claimed the Sammy Baugh Award as the nation’s top passing QB.

Four times that year, he surpassed 300 yards in the air (a huge number for a QB in that era of the sport) and on four more occasions, he threw for at least 400 yards.  But his biggest game came in a victory over Missouri when he passed for 510 yards and five TDs.

Of course, his claim to fame that year was the fact that he pulled off wins over both Texas A&M and Texas.  In a double-OT October road win over the Aggies, he threw for 474 yards and 5 TDs as Tech erased an 18-point fourth-quarter deficit.  And in his last home game, he threw for 473 yards and six TDs as Tech upset the No. 3 Longhorns.

This fantastic season by Kingsbury began a run of seven straight seasons in which a Tech QB passed for at least 4,000 yards.  It was also the year that the “Air Raid” really gained traction in Lubbock and it was thanks to the fantastic season by the starting QB.

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