Texas Tech football: Is Behren Morton ready for this opportunity?

In Morton’s only win at Texas Tech, he wasn’t asked to do very much

In between the OSU and TCU games last year, Morton made two other stats.  One was a resounding win while the other a disastrous loss.  Let’s look first at the win over West Virginia.

In the only game thus far that Tech has won when Morton has led the team in pass attempts, the Red Raiders scored a dominating 48-10 victory over the Mountaineers in Lubbock.  However, that game was not put on the shoulders of the redshirt freshman QB.

Instead, Tahj Brooks and the running game carried the day for the home team.  Brooks ran for 107 yards and two TDS while SaRodorick Thompson had a TD and 59 more yards.  Even freshman RB Bryson Donnell gave the Red Raiders 49 yards on the ground as Tech would rush the ball 54 times for 239 yards.

Morton did put the ball in the air 45 times though.  Completing 28 of those passes, he amassed 325 yards and a pair of TDs.

It is important to understand that, on that day, Tech was out to a 17-3 lead before Morton threw his first TD pass, a 55-yard strike to Xavier White in the third quarter.  His second TD, a 12-yard connection to Loic Fouonji, pushed the lead to 31-10 and the beating was on in full force.

That’s the only game of Morton’s time as a Red Raider in which he’s attempted more than 20 passes in a victory.  Completing 62.2% of his attempts he was solid but not spectacular in that regard and as we learned this past Saturday, accuracy is still something that he needs to develop.

What’s interesting though, is that Morton at his best usually brings big plays to the offense.  That’s because he takes chances that other QBs, namely Shough, often are not willing to.

Naturally, risk is associated with those daring throws but the reward can be worth it.  In his short career, he’s had 10 TD passes, and among that number are plays of 55, 47, 27, and 21 yards.

When Morton is on, he’s pushing the ball downfield and attacking the deep middle of the defense, two things that Shough was reluctant to do.  Hopefully, we see more of that from the offense with Morton now running the show.