When the 2024 college football season commences, Texas Tech football coach Joey McGuire fully expects Behren Morton to open as his starting quarterback, despite lingering questions about the health of Morton’s throwing shoulder. And the Red Raiders plan to incorporate newcomer Cameran Brown, who was recruited after McGuire directed his staff to find a dual-threat quarterback in the NCAA transfer portal.
No one need tell the Tech coach, however, that he has to prepare for the possibility of his first two quarterbacks missing time on account of injury. That’s happened in each of McGuire’s first two years in charge of the Red Raiders.
If the Red Raiders need to turn to a No. 3 quarterback this season, as it stands now redshirt freshman Jake Strong or true freshman Will Hammond would be next up. Which one? That depends.
“You really want the ability to redshirt Will Hammond,” McGuire said last month, a few weeks after spring practice, “although if you just go by the spring stats, he had a better spring stat-wise than Jake. I would say Jake would be 3 and Will would be 4.
“But if you got past Cam (Brown), it would be a deal where, ‘How can we win the game with who’s healthy?’ Will Hammond threw 25 touchdowns and only four interceptions during the spring on all competitive throws. He’s going to be really, really good for us.”
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Strong stayed in the four-game redshirt window last season, but he played the second half of a 38-21 loss to Kansas State and was pressed into starting duty the next week in a 27-14 loss at Brigham Young. Against Kansas State, he threw for 173 yards and a touchdown and set up a TD with a 54-yard run. At BYU,…
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