Top 10 college football quarterbacks going into 2016 spring practice
By John Buhler
The Texas Tech Red Raiders have had a long history of having great passing attacks in their revolutionary spread offense. Texas Tech had a great deal of success running the Air Raid under former head coach Mike Leach. Now that former Red Raiders starting quarterback Kliff Kingsbury is leading his alma mater on the sidelines in Lubbock, Texas in the Big 12, he now has a new ringleader of the Red Raiders’ vaunted aerial attack in Patrick Mahomes.
Mahomes emerged as Kingsbury’s favorite to orchestrate the Red Raiders offense in 2015. He threw for 4,653 yards and 36 touchdowns in 13 starts for Texas Tech in his sophomore season. Mahomes is an accurate passer, completing 63.5% of his passes as a sophomore, throwing only 15 interceptions on 573 pass attempts.
Mahomes averaged 8.2 yards per attempt in the Red Raiders’ offense, accumulating a 147.2 passer rating. He’s also been a boost to Texas Tech’s rushing attack as somewhat of a dual-threat passer, rushing for 456 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2015.
Now that Texas Tech has presumably found its starting quarterback for 2016 and possibly 2017 in Mahomes, who’s to say that the Red Raiders can’t put together a 10-win season and make some serious noise in the quarterback-driven Big 12? If he improves in year three at Texas Tech, Mahomes is undoubtedly a top 10 passer in college football during his junior season with the Red Raiders.
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