Takeaways: Kingsbury says Bowman is questionable, talks about TCU

During Monday’s press conference, Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury said Alan Bowman was questionable for Thursday’s game against TCU after the freshman quarterback went out of the game against West Virginia on Saturday, Sept. 29, due to a collapsed lung. He also gives updates on McLane Carter, T.J. Vasher and the running backs, and he and Broderick Washington and Terence Steele talk about TCU.

Kliff Kingsbury

- First off, Kingsbury gave the update on Bowman. “He’s been out there in practice. It’s an interesting injury. None of us have experience with it, so we’re kind of taking it day by day, expect him to be back sooner than later.”

- Kingsbury is hoping to have Bowman, Carter and Jett Duffey able to play against TCU. It is important to note that all three have been participating in practice.

- For Carter, Kingsbury said he is doing better. “Not sure if he’s game ready or not. We’ve got a couple of days left.”

- He, later on, talked about TCU’s defense. “Very disciplined, you’ve got to earn every yard, nothing’s conceded, just impressive every year no matter who the pieces are.”

- Vasher has been limited in his participation in practice and it is a day to day situation where they will see if he is game ready or not.

- For TCU’s quarterback situation, head coach Gary Patterson had said it will look like Shawn Robinson will play but not start. Kingsbury said Tech will have plans for both quarterbacks. “Shawn is a tremendous athlete and the other kid we haven’t seen a ton of but it sounds like he’s a very talented player as well.” He later touched on Robinson’s running ability and said the defense faces the challenge of having a lot of skill on their offense that they have to try and contain.

- When asked if Duffey has sharpened his decision making in practice, Kingsbury said this, “We’ll see, you never know until you get out to a game. I feel like all three of those guys have gotten better as the year went on.”

- When asked if Bowman has been cleared for air travel, Kingsbury said: “we’ll see”. “That’s kind of one of the things we’re working through. We’ve had different opinions, varying opinions just varying research out there, so we’re trying to be as thorough as we can.”

- Diving into the self-scouting they did over the bye week, Kingsbury said, defensively, the Red Raiders allowed too many big plays in both the pass and run game. Offensively, he said the big thing that jumped out was ball security.

- With the hope of all five running backs being available, the question came up of whether Kingsbury could redshirt SaRodorick Thompson. “He would be one I think we could – we’ll see where it goes but been really impressed with his development, but he’s a guy with that many backs that we feel are serviceable if we can redshirt him then we’d like to be able to do that.”

- On TCU wide receiver Jalen Reagor, “He’s a phenomenal player. We obviously know him very well. He was committed to us for a while and I played with his father. Great young man, great family, tremendous athlete.”

Broderick Washington

- Washington started out saying he used the bye week to work on the small things he needed to get better at but he more so used the break to take care of his body.

- When asked what stuck out to him on tape about TCU, he said their offensive line was physical. “They got good skill guys. Good quarterback play. Overall, they’re a pretty good offense.” Later on, Washington said it was pretty much just another day as the defensive line practices playing physical.

- In preparing for potentially two different quarterbacks, Washington said the challenge was not knowing if TCU wants to do the same things they would usually do with Robinson for Michael Collins..

- The main thing Washington said he learned from the loss to West Virginia was they needed to start fast. “If we can put four quarters together, we can beat anybody.”

- Washington also said the defensive line is prepared for TCU’s running backs and compared them to Tech’s running backs.

- When the defense gets off to a slow start, Washington said defensive line coach Terrance Jamison tells them to stay calm. “He does a good job of keeping us together when things are going bad.”

- He also said the bye could not have come at a better time. “We’ve got a lot of guys that are banged up and honestly the bye week was a good thing for us.”

- On the defensive line progression, “Honestly, those guys have been busting their butts. Now we’re at a point where we can rotate every series and stuff like that so you won’t see the same guys out there for the whole game. A lot of those young guys are starting to get more game reps, so the growth in our room is pretty amazing.”

Terence Steele

- Steele said Tech has faced better pass rush than TCU so far this season but that the Horned Frogs are still up there.

- More in-depth, Steele said the defensive line of TCU is very good. “Last year, they held us to three points which is unacceptable from us but the d-line’s solid.”

- Steele was among the group that went to see Bowman while he was in the hospital and described Bowman as being in good spirits.

- After Bowman got the hit that took him out of the game, Steele said it made him feel like he had to tighten up his blocking and not let stuff like that happen anymore.

- When describing Bowman’s leadership, Steele said he will tell someone when they are messing up.

- With the experience on the offensive line, Steele feels that gives the running backs confidence knowing they can count on the offensive line to give them a hole to run through.

- Steele said he will likely go against TCU’s senior defensive end Ben Ganogu for most of the game. “I went against him last year. I didn’t see nothing special from him, so I’m expecting the same thing.”