When you are a program coming off of five consecutive losing seasons, nothing is certain. Thus, for anyone to believe that he has a great handle on how the 2021 Texas Tech football season will play out is laughable.
In fact, for level-headed Red Raider fans, it is just as easy to envision this year’s team going 8-4 as it is to envision it going 4-8. That’s because this program is swimming in questions that need to be answered.
There are some programs that confidently enter just about every fall feeling more than certain they are going to be in great shape when toe meets leather. But Texas Tech doesn’t live in that neighborhood.
Rather, Tech lives in the world of the day-to-day struggle where success and failure are both equally likely and the difference between the two is razor-thin. Therefore, entering just about every season, questions about this team loom heavy in the minds of those of us who live and die by what the boys in scarlet and black do each week.
The 2021 campaign is no different so let’s take a look at five questions that will be answered on Saturday night when the Red Raiders face Houston. And we will begin with the most important question surrounding this entire program (outside of conference realignment, that is).
Just how good is Tyler Shough?
The vast majority of Texas Tech football fans have never seen the Red Raiders’ starting QB, Tyler Shough, play an entire game. Heck, nine months ago, most had never even heard of him given that he spent the first two years of his college career out of sight and out of mind out on the West Coast at Oregon.
But since the moment that the Arizona native transferred to Tech this spring, he’s become the most important individual in the program. That’s because the future of Tech football will likely be determined by what he can accomplish this fall.
If he proves to be a future NFL Draft prospect then this season is likely going to be good enough for Matt Wells and his coaching staff to keep their jobs. After all, Kirby Hocutt and the school administration aren’t expecting Wells to put up a 10-win season or deliver a conference title.
Rather, all that will be required for Wells to save his hide is a trip to a bowl. Even if Tech stumbles to the postseason with a 6-6 mark, Hocutt will almost assuredly keep his hand-picked head coach around for another year or two as he would have some sign of progress to point towards as justification.
Shough has to be good enough to get Tech to that point…right? I mean, he did lead Oregon to seven wins and the PAC-12 championship last year.
But there remains a bit of a question about just how good Shough really is. Remember that last year, he split time with Anthony Brown, a glorified running back and transfer from Boston College.
In other words, though Shough was the starter for all seven of the Duck’s games last year, he didn’t exactly take that job by the throat and refuse to relinquish it to anyone else. So there remains a question about whether or not he can live up to Texas Tech’s lofty QB expectations.
He’s a career 64.8% passer, which is ok but far from elite. What’s more, he barely had better than a 2: 1 TD: INT ratio in 2020.
Still, he has to be better than what we’ve seen come through Lubbock in the post-Mahomes era, doesn’t he? This is a former 4-star prospect who was thought to be the heir apparent to Justin Herbert in Eugene as recently as last year.
But no one really knows what we will get from Shough on Saturday night. And make no mistake, one game will not define his legacy as a Red Raider regardless of whether that game is solid or lacking. What Saturday will start to reveal to us though is just how good of a QB the Red Raiders have in Tyler Shough. That’s a question we’ve been wanting answers to all offseason.