One of the most noteworthy awards in college football is keeping a close eye on what Texas Tech quarterback Behren Morton is capable of accomplishing this season. Morton, who has pretty quietly pieced together a really solid career out in Lubbock, is bouncing back from an injury and is among the players listed on the 2025 Maxwell Award Watch List.
Morton is the only Texas Tech player to make it onto the list and he’s one of 80 players nationwide that the award committee will be keeping up with throughout the season.
While that probably seems like a lot of players, a little piece of math and context can help frame things a bit here. When you factor in there’s over 120 FBS teams and each of those teams has well over 80 players on scholarships (some up to over 100 players on scholarship), that’s actually a pretty small grouping for Morton to be among.
And so, it’s pretty cool to see Morton included here.
Texas Tech quarterback Behren Morton makes it onto 2025 preseason watch list for the Maxwell Award
Morton is closing in on 10,000 career passing yards and playing in Mack Leftwich’s offense might help him get there. He’d need a career year to accomplish that, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility. So far, Morton has 6209 passing yards and 49 touchdowns against 22 picks. Last season, Morton threw for 3335 yards and 27 touchdowns.
So, you know, just build on that and maybe play something like 15 games (shoutout to the theoretical possibility of playing in the Big 12 championship and the College Football Playoffs) and you can get there?
We’ll see.
As of right now, let’s just enjoy the fact that Texas Tech’s starting quarterback is among this group of really high profile players who will certainly be celebrated throughout the season. And let’s keep an eye on this watch list to see how it changes throughout the season as well.