7/1/2016 football Edit

Phil Steele expecting big year from Mahomes, Texas Tech offense

Aaron Dickens • RedRaiderSports

Editor

College football guru Phil Steele is predicting another big year for Pat Mahomes and the Texas Tech offense.

In an appearance Thursday on Lubbock's Double T 97.3, Steele said Mahomes is "clearly" one of the best quarterbacks in college football.

"I thought that two years ago with Texas Tech, part of that 4-8 season, two factors were missing," Steele said. "One, was the protection of the football. The second was a little bit of mobility at the quarterback position. Mahomes answered both of those big time. He had 36 touchdowns last year, just 15 interceptions, ran for 458 yards.

"A great athlete. NFL guys are looking at him. He didn't play baseball this spring to concentrate on football. I think he'll be one of the top quarterbacks in the country."

While Steele expects the Red Raiders to average over 40 points per game this fall, he did acknowledge that the team's offense will need to overcome question marks at running back and offensive line.

Steele was not as optimistic about Texas Tech's defense, but still expects David Gibbs' unit to be better than it was in 2015.

"Defensively, last year, I thought Texas Tech was going to show improvement," Steele said. "I bought into the David Gibbs philosophy. And I think Gibbs will do a good job there and they will be improved. But I was sort of shocked that they allowed 6.2 yards per carry rushing, 61 percent completions (against) and 43.6 points per game (in 2015).

"Then you look at the fact on the defensive side they lose arguably the top three players in (Micah) Awe, (Pete) Robertson and (Branden) Jackson. But they can only really improve, right, in Gibbs' second year? It's far from a dominating defense, but we'll call for the improvement that I thought would happen last year to happen this year and have them be improved."

Overall, Steele projects a six or seven win season for Texas Tech. He noted that the Red Raiders, at this point, would probably be underdogs in their games against Arizona State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU and maybe Kansas State.