Oregon quarterback Tyler Shough (12) throws passes prior to the Fiesta Bowl recreation versus Iowa Point out at State Farm Stadium.
Ncaa Football Fiesta Bowl Oregon Vs Iowa State
Football is the greatest crew activity. However, summer season is the time we start out to believe about individual players and specifically the new faces that have joined the Texas Tech soccer system.
It’s fascinating mainly because this year, we can right see a connection involving the particular person players Matt Wells has brought into the application and the weaknesses that he and his coaching staff members perceive the roster to have. Which is just one of the facet consequences of the transfer portal.
When recruiting was all about the substantial school and JUCO ranks, teams tried to provide in a nicely-well balanced recruiting class that would consist of players at just about every situation. Having said that, with the transfer portal, coaches method recruiting like a grocery listing.
This calendar year, Wells understands that the gamers he’s additional had improved pan out, or else he is very likely to drop his task. After all, he arrived within an eyelash of being fired just after last period, his 2nd-straight 4-win season as head coach of the Pink Raiders.
So let’s seem at 5 additions that will identify Wells’ fate as properly as the destiny of the 2021 period. And we will start with the most clear player on the roster.
Tyler Shough
Texas Tech football lovers know that no one in West Texas will have additional of an affect on how the impending season will enjoy out than the area’s latest transplant from Eugene, Oregon, Tyler Shough.
The predicted setting up QB for this year’s Purple Raider squad, he provides new hope for a placement that utilized to be a presented in Lubbock but which has been wildly and frustratingly insufficient due to the fact Patrick Mahomes was finishing no-search and sidearm passes at Jones Stadium in 2016. While no a person expects Shough to replicate Mahomes’ magic, it is practically universally believed that he will be superior than any of the six gamers to have commenced at least a single sport for Tech at QB due to the fact the Mahomes period ended.
That’s not a large bar to apparent however as no Purple Raider QB due to the fact Mahomes has handed for 4,000 yards and only 1, Nic Shimonek in 2017, has passed for around 3,000 yards. By distinction, from 2002-16, Tech had 11 a long time in which a QB threw for about 4,000 yards with five years in which the starting QB eclipsed the 5,000-yard mark.
Shough has in no way arrive close to figures like that but that’s for the reason that his only season to be a starter was the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season that saw Oregon enjoy just seven online games. In those seven game titles, he threw for 1,559 yards, which averages out to 222.7 yards for every activity.
So, there however continues to be a question as to no matter if Shough has it in him to be a star QB or if he’s just the up coming in the at any time-developing line of mediocre to negative Crimson Raider QBs in the article-Mahomes period. Soon after all, Shough did have to break up time with yet another QB past calendar year indicating that he didn’t do plenty of to thoroughly safe the position in Oregon.
But he stays Tech’s greatest hope for accomplishment in 2021. That’s due to the fact Henry Colombi confirmed last year that he’s a nice backup who can gain a game or two in a pinch but that he is not the type of player Tech would like to lean on for an whole season. And the only other solutions for Wells and Co. are freshmen Donovan Smith and Behren Morton, neither of whom has taken a snap at the collegiate stage.
Hence, most of what comes about for this year’s Purple Raiders will boil down to how Shough develops as a QB below new offensive coordinator Sonny Cumbie. That is why it is no extend to say that Shough is the most vital Purple Raider on the roster in 2021 and, specified what’s at stake for the future of the plan this year, he could possibly be the most important Crimson Raider to don the scarlet and black because Mahomes was leading the offense.
