Texas Tech's Patrick Mahomes is Texas-born and a different breed

Paul Myerberg | USA TODAY Sports

LUBBOCK, Texas — The Texas Tech quarterbacks who strolled through West Texas for more than a decade were always skinny, cerebral and confident, or at least the latter. Kliff Kingsbury was the total package, as well as the archetype of a position that would come to define the program's overall identity.

It could be Kingsbury, or it could be Symons, Cumbie, Harrell, Potts, Doege or another. The friendliest quarterback system in college football featured a conveyer belt of productive passers, each under-recruited, all from the state of Texas, and many now found in the pages of the NCAA record book.

Like his predecessors, Patrick Mahomes is a Texan — from Whitehouse, an East Texas city located roughly equidistant between Dallas and the Louisiana line. Yet outside of the shared offensive system now run by Kingsbury, the Red Raiders' third-year coach, geography may be all that ties Mahomes to the program's quarterback lineage.

"He's far from a traditional quarterback," said running back DeAndre Washington. "He's his own guy."

Mahomes was recruited by Texas, Texas A&M and Notre Dame, with the latter making a strong push during the stretch toward national signing day only to be rebuffed. I gave my word to Kingsbury and Tech, Mahomes told the Fighting Irish.

Football wasn't his first love, and certainly isn't in his blood. Mahomes' father, Pat, played Major League Baseball for more than a decade, passing along athletic genes and an affinity for line drives and fastballs. Rest assured: Mahomes is the first Texas Tech quarterback to have been taught the art of hitting by Alex Rodriguez, or to have shagged fly balls from Robin Ventura during batting practice. "I'm glad he picked football," offensive tackle Le'Raven Clark said.

In an era when personalized quarterback development has become commonplace, Mahomes never had a private coach and never attended the quarterback-only camps that have become a ubiquitous part of a recruit's offseason schedule. He didn't play football until middle school, then as a safety, and didn't take over at quarterback until the third game of his junior year.

"There's no guru to it, there's no camps," Kingsbury said. "He's just a natural thrower."

Mahomes is just a natural, period, with the numbers and success through the midway point of his sophomore season to paint an absurdly bright future. He's also the evolution of a type: Texas Tech quarterbacks have long been this productive, but never this athletic, never this instinctual and never this full of potential.

"He's pretty special," said offensive coordinator Eric Morris. "It's fun to watch him create these plays and find people down field. How accurate he throws the ball on the run is what's really remarkable to me."

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There are throws and moments that stand out, from an across-his-body toss in last season's game against Oklahoma — Morris references it nearly a year later — to, more recently, a block thrown in September's win against Arkansas. Washington was already downfield when he caught "a red blur" out of the corner of his eye: Mahomes, a 220-pound missile, sprinting toward an Arkansas safety to spring his running back for additional yardage.

At least Mahomes led with his left, non-throwing shoulder and not his right. The coaches weren't displeased, necessarily, just wary: Please don't do that again, Kingsbury said. His teammates, on the other hand, viewed Mahomes' willingness to sacrifice his body as the latest example of a sophomore embracing his new role, as the leader of a program quietly ascending the pecking order in a top-heavy Big 12 Conference.

"To us, and to the team, it goes to show what kind of football player he is," offensive lineman Jared Kaster said. "He loves the game of football. If he couldn't throw the football, I'm pretty sure he'd probably be a defensive lineman, just because of that block. He just loves hitting people.

"The willingness to go out there as a quarterback and just throw your whole body out there for your team goes a long way. It goes to show the competitiveness and determination he has in his heart, and what he's willing to do for this football team."

It also supports another idea: Maybe Mahomes doesn't know any better. This isn't in a negative way, but in the sense that a sophomore quarterback with less than a full season of starting experience — and only two years of quarterback experience in high school — is relying on his instincts, as his father suggested.

"There are some times when I try to do too much and I'll run around for no reason, really," the younger Mahomes said. "It's fun, but it can hurt you at the same time. Sometimes you just have to learn from it, when to do it and when not to do it."

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That's all part of the learning process, the game-by-game development of any young quarterback thrust into the starting role as an underclassman. It's just that Mahomes is already performing at a high level: He ranks third nationally in passing yards and sixth in touchdowns, numbers that place the sophomore alongside two Heisman Trophy-contending peers inside this conference, TCU's Trevone Boykin and Baylor's Seth Russell.

Essentially, Mahomes has taken an existing scheme — that of pocket passers delivering downfield again and again, at historic rates — and added a twist.

No Texas Tech quarterback has ever moved quite like this; Mahomes is on pace for nearly 500 yards rushing and double-digit touchdowns on the ground. As a total unit, Texas Tech quarterbacks accounted for five rushing yards from 2008-13, including yardage lost on sacks.

No quarterback during the program's pass-happy era has ever matched Mahomes' ability to improvise under pressure. It can get the Red Raiders in trouble, as Mahomes admitted. It can also mean the difference between a failed drive and a scoring drive, and points have never been at more of a premium than during this offense-first era of the Big 12.

And no Texas Tech quarterback has ever seemed more crucial to the program's immediate and long-term success. Inside Texas Tech, players and coaches have enormous confidence in the Red Raiders' ability to use this season — they've already exceeded last season's win total — as a springboard toward national contention.

The offense ranks third in the Football Bowl Subdivision in points per game and yards per play. The defense lags, but has found a purpose behind first-year coordinator David Gibbs. Texas Tech wants to force turnovers and punts, much like Baylor, in an effort to create more possessions for its potent scoring attack. The program has found a formula; not coincidentally, Kingsbury and his staff have also found a quarterback.

"He's it," Kingsbury said. "Without him, it's not the same. That is a special talent."

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