After Patrick Mahomes helped reestablish Texas Tech as a place that regularly produced quarterbacks who can get a ton of passing yards in any sort of season, Nic Shimonek showed up to Lubbock, took over as the starting quarterback, and managed to keep that trend rolling in 2017.
Unfortunately for Shimonek, there wasn’t much else that went right for Texas Tech in that season. Shimonek was able to produce a ton of passing yards, but the Red Raiders just didn’t seem capable of consistently stringing wins together.
We’re talking about a program that missed out on a bowl game in one of the two seasons in which Patrick Mahomes was the starting quarterback. And while Shimonek wasn’t Mahomes, he did get the distinct pleasure of being able to play in a bowl game in 2017.
And the Red Raiders didn’t really have much else going on. They had a bowl appearance, a ton of passing yards, and a 6-7 record by the time the season was all said and done.
Texas Tech football history: Kliff Kingsbury really wasn’t able to get many wins, despite a solid showing from Nic Shimonek in 2017
Shimonek started the season with a hyper efficient outing against Eastern Washington as he completed 26 of 30 pass attempts for three touchdowns and 384 passing yards. A couple weeks later, Shimonek completed 37 of his 50 attempts against Arizona State for six touchdowns and 543 passing yards.
Throughout the season, Shimonek routinely threw for more than 300 yards against Texas Tech’s opponents. It’s something he did on eight occasions, including against Arizona State, Houston, Oklahoma State, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kansas State, and USF.
In total, we’re talking about a season that Shimonek completed over 66 percent of his passes, threw 33 touchdown passes, had just 10 interceptions, put up 3963 passing yards, and Texas Tech couldn’t get above .500 on the season.
And unfortunately, this would be the last 3000 yard (or more) passing season for Texas Tech until Behren Morton showed up to campus.