Hear Texas Tech football coach Joey McGuire analyze his quarterbacks
Red Raiders begin spring practice with returnee Behren Morton as No. 1 and a healthy competition among Jake Strong, Cameran Brown, Will Hammond
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, Strong threw for 236 yards and a TD.
His drawback was throwing three interceptions in both games.
McGuire said after the spring game, seeing coverage over the middle and avoiding tipped passes are a point of emphasis for this summer for Strong, a 6-foot-1, 210-pound Justin Northwest graduate.
Late in spring practice, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Zach Kittley said Strong has traits he values, though.
“What Jake has,” Kittley said, “is experience in the system and the football IQ that we’re looking for here.”
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Hammond, as a senior last season at Class 6A Hutto, threw for 3,901 yards and 35 touchdowns and rushed for 1,077 yards and 19 TDs. Hammond, 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, is the No. 36 prospect in Texas and No. 226 in the nation on the 247Sports composite index of high-school seniors in the class of 2024.
The impressive rushing stats aside, McGuire doesn’t envision him doing much running as a college QB.
“He (was clocked at) 19 miles per hour,” McGuire said. “He had a big run in one of our team competes. He is capable to run it, but I wouldn’t say that’s something that we’re wanting to do. He’ll be able to run enough, but that’s not like what he’s great at.”
His best trait?
“His composure in the pocket,” McGuire said. “He’s got a really big arm. But for a kid that young, the way he … Most young quarterbacks, when they feel pressure, instead of stepping up and throwing the ball, they try to escape to the right or their left. And he has not been that guy.
“He’s been the guy that, as more pressure’s coming, stepping up away from that pressure and delivering the ball. His poise in the pocket, you saw that in high school, but seeing it every single day is really impressive.”
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