While Seth Doege didn’t get a chance to start for Mike Leach during the legendary coach’s time in Lubbock leading the Texas Tech Red Raiders, the talented quarterback put up some numbers that definitely resembled some of Leach’s offenses.
A couple of years after Texas Tech made the very controversial decision to move on from Mike Leach (especially controversial when you start looking at some of the weird circumstances that surrounded the firing of Leach), Doege took over in the driver’s seat and went on to throw for a bunch of yards against all sorts of teams in 2011.
And while the 2011 Texas Tech football season, as a whole, was a letdown after over a decade of fun, it was clear that Doege was equipped to thrive as a quarterback in Lubbock.
Texas Tech football history: Despite not having Mike Leach, Seth Doege still thrived as the starting quarterback for the Red Raiders in 2011
He started the season off with thrilling, efficient, and productive outings against Texas State, New Mexico, and Nevada. Through those three games, Doege threw for over 900 yards and had 11 touchdown passes. He wasn’t struggling at all.
Now, Kansas did cause Doege to throw a pick, but he followed that up with a phenomenal showing against Texas A&M. Against the Aggies, Doege managed to complete 44 of his 66 pass attempts while throwing three touchdown passes and 391 yards against zero interceptions.
And then Kansas State the following week caused him to throw three picks and just one touchdown while completing 43 of 63 pass attempts for 461 yards. Now, he then followed that up with a four touchdown, 441 passing yard performance against the Oklahoma Sooners!
As a whole, the season was a wild one for Doege, who managed to throw for 4004 yards and 28 touchdowns against 10 picks. After a couple of seasons of Taylor Potts not getting to 4000 passing yards in a season, this sort of showing from Doege probably felt pretty good and like the Red Raiders had something to build around.