Starting quarterback has been a precarious place within the Big 12.
Whether attributable to accidents or teaching selections, staying on the sector has been a problem for lots of the league’s quarterbacks who began the season No. 1 for his or her applications.
Injuries have knocked out starters sooner or later within the season for Texas, Kansas, BYU, Baylor, Texas Tech, TCU, West Virginia and Central Florida — greater than half the league.
Oklahoma State’s quarterback carousel lasted via the primary few video games earlier than coach Mike Gundy settled on Alan Bowman. Even Kansas State, which gained final season’s Big 12 championship recreation behind veteran Will Howard, put in freshman Avery Johnson when Howard struggled. The senior responded along with his finest play of the season.
The place has been as jumbled because the league standings. Seven groups are inside two video games of convention chief Texas.
Oklahoma and Iowa State have been injury- and rotation-free and the Sooners and Cyclones are nonetheless within the combine for the league championship. Dillon Gabriel has been distinctive at occasions for the Sooners, main a win over Texas and setting faculty data final week towards West Virginia,
Iowa State’s Rocco Becht was thrust into the beginning function as a result of Hunter Dekkers was snagged by the state investigation into Iowa and Iowa State athletes participating in sports activities wagering. Dekkers pleading responsible to underage playing and paid a positive, and hasn’t performed whereas serving an NCAA suspension.
League entrance runner Texas gained two video games with backup Maalik Murphy in for injured starter Quinn Ewers. Ewers returned final week for the 29-26 win over TCU, however Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian praised his workforce’s capacity to win with Murphy.
Texas has Ewers again on the sector for 2 crucial video games, towards Iowa State and Texas Tech. Texas is pursuing its first Big 12 title since 2009 in what would be the program’s final season within the league earlier than heading to the Southeastern Conference together with Oklahoma subsequent summer season.
“I think he was a little sore” after the TCU recreation, Sarkisian mentioned. (*8*)
BYU’s first season within the Big 12 included a plan to redshirt junior school switch Jake Retzlaff as an understudy to Kedon Slovis. That plan blew up with an harm to Slovis’ throwing arm, and Retzlaff struggled in losses to West Virginia and Iowa State.
UCF’s Big 12 debut noticed starter John Rhys Plumlee knocked off the sector for a month with a knee harm.
TCU has misplaced three in a row behind freshman Josh Hoover, who took over for Chandler Morris (knee sprain). Morris was the starter in 2022 when he was injured within the first recreation. Max Duggan took over and led the Horned Frogs to the nationwide championship recreation.
“I think that’s just kind of the nature of college football and, you know, just look around the league and again, starting with us, there’s a lot of starting quarterbacks that have gone down,” TCU coach Sonny Dykes mentioned. (*12*)
No workforce has had extra exhausting luck at quarterback than Kansas.
The Jayhawks had the preseason offensive participant of the yr in Jalon Daniels in Lance Leipold’s rising program. But he has performed solely three video games due to again issues and was a pre-game scratch earlier than a 40-14 loss to Texas. He hasn’t returned.
Jason Bean has began in his place and led this system’s historic win over Oklahoma. Bean sustained a head harm final week towards Texas Tech. That left the Jayhawks with walk-on Cole Ballard, the son of Indianapolis Colts normal supervisor Chris Ballard, taking part in a lot of the recreation in a 16-13 loss.
Leipold mentioned he’s “very optimistic” Bean will return this week.
Texas Tech can nearly match that distress and musical chairs at QB.
Starter Tyler Shough broke his left leg on the finish of September. It was the third consecutive season the sixth-year switch has missed important time attributable to harm. Since then, Behren Morton took over, then had a shoulder sprain and freshman Jake Strong needed to begin a recreation.
Morton has returned however Texas Tech is one in every of 9 colleges to start out no less than three quarterbacks this season.
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AP Sports Writers Stephen Hawkins, Eric Olson, Mitch Stacy, John Raby, Dave Skretta and freelance author John Coon contributed.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 workers and is printed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)
