Texas Tech football: QB Alan Bowman day-to-day with ankle injury

Monday, Texas Tech football head coach Matt Wells said that starting QB Alan Bowman is day-to-day with an ankle injury.

After leaving Saturday’s 31-21 loss at Kansas State with an ankle injury, starting quarterback Alan Bowman appears to have avoided disaster. Instead of suffering the third season-ending injury of his career, Bowman was more fortunate this time around and is listed as “day-to-day” according to his head coach, Matt Wells, who spoke to the media on Monday.

"“Nothing’s broke, nothing’s fractured,” Wells said. “He’s day-to-day.”"

Late in the first quarter of Saturday’s game, Bowman was rolled up on by Kansas State’s Khalid Duke, who was assessed a roughing the passer penalty. Though he would try to return to action, even going so far as to take some warmup throws at halftime, Bowman would not return to the game leaving the offense in the hands of junior Henry Colombi.

The Utah State transfer, who was making his first appearance as a Red Raider, performed well in Bowman’s place completing 30-42 passes for 244 yards and two TDs while being intercepted once. What’s more, he led his team on three-straight TD drives to open the second half, the third of which gave Tech a brief 21-17 lead early in the fourth quarter.

Now we wait to see whether it will be Bowman or Colombi who gets the start this Saturday at Iowa State. But whoever it may be, he will have his hands full.

Under head coach Matt Campbell, the Cyclones have become arguably the best defensive program in the Big 12. What’s more, they are coming off of a 37-30 win over Oklahoma in which they held the No. 2 offense in the conference to a hundred yards below its season average.

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Interestingly though, Colombi might possess a skill that could help solve the ISU defense; the ability to pick up yards with his legs. He ran for 40 yards on 8 carries against Kansas State and that might be a weapon Tech could rely on even more heavily this weekend should Colombi get the start.

Traditionally, teams with mobile quarterbacks have had more success against the Cyclones than those with traditional pocket passers. For instance, last year, OU beat ISU 42-41 in a game that saw Sooner QB Jalen Hurts rush for 68 yards and two TDs on 22 carries. Also, earlier that year, Oklahoma State’s Spencer Sanders had 43 yards on the ground against the Cyclones in a 34-27 win.

It isn’t that Tech would ask Colombi to gash Iowa State for a hundred yards. But rather, his ability to keep drives alive by scrambling for first downs could be critical against a Cyclone defense that usually rushes only three players and drops eight men into coverage.

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Of course, we still don’t even know if Colombi will be the man to lead the Red Raider offense this weekend. It appears that we will have to wait and see what transpires this week to find out if Alan Bowman is fit to play or not. But the good news is that, if he isn’t, we can be confident in Colombi’s abilities thanks to the nice showing he had against the Wildcats.

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