Texas Tech football players set to take a big jump in 2024

One of the storylines from the 2023 Texas Tech football season was that players were pressed into action earlier than intended. Injuries are always part of any season and last fall, they certainly required head coach Joey McGuire to rely on the depth of his roster.

That wasn't necessarily good news for a team that entered 2023 with such high expectations. However, all of that extra experience could pay dividends this coming season. So let's take a look at three Red Raiders that could take a significant step forward this coming fall.

QB Behren Morton is now the man for Texas Tech

The Red Raiders are going into 2024 with a new QB1 in Behren Morton. Of course, he was forced to make eight starts last year after the season-ending injury to Tyler Shough but now, for the first time in his career, this is Morton's program to lead.

This will be the first college offseason that Morton has entered into as the man. He will get all of the first-team repetitions in spring football and fall camp and he will be asked to mature and take the next step as a leader both on and off the field.

Of course, what would help Morton the most would be a clean bill of health for a full season. Remember that we still haven't seen him play a full game as a collegiate when he wasn't dealing with some type of nagging injury.

In his handful of starts in 2022, he had to deal with a high ankle sprain that limited his mobility. This past fall, in every game he started, he had to manage a sprained shoulder that he suffered in the same game that Shough went down. Thus, he was limited in terms of arm strength and it caused him to be a shell of the player that most Texas Tech football fans believe he can be.

This past season, the redshirt sophomore completed 62.1% of his passes but only threw for 1,757 yards and 15 TDs with 8 picks in nine starts. Of course, we should expect far more than that next year.

Also helping him in 2024 will be a revamped and improved set of receivers including transfer WR Josh Kelly, transfer TE Jalin Conyers, and 5-star freshman signee Micah Hudson. That's a much more lethal group of pass catchers than Morton had to work with this past fall. So expect Morton to take a huge step forward and finally realize the potential we've all believed he has.