Leading No. 6 Oklahoma 31-28 at the half, Texas Tech was in prime position to spring an upset. Freshman quarterback Alan Bowman was dealing, completing 21-of-27 passes for 227 yards and two touchdowns.
Except when the Red Raiders took the field in the second half, Bowman was not among them, for reasons that went unexplained on the broadcast. Jett Duffey played the remainder of the way at quarterback, throwing for 139 yards and two touchdowns and rushing for 47 yards and another score, but the Sooners surged back for a 51-46 win.
After the game, Texas Tech revealed the reason Bowman did not return.
On a 3-yard rush near the end of the first half, Bowman was hit in the mid-section by OU linebacker Curtis Bolton, which re-aggravated the partially collapsed lung that kept him in the hospital for four nights last month.
Bowman spent the night at Lubbock’s Covenant Medical Center for observation.
“He tried to go wide, and we thought he would stick his foot in the ground and walk into the end zone. But he didn’t, and so ended up taking a shot,” Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
Bowman returned to the field for halftime warmups until it became apparent he would not be able to play in the second half. To add insult to injury, he was struck in the head by an errant pass while walking up the tunnel to the locker room.
To make matters worse, Texas Tech also lost its best defensive player, linebacker Dakota Allen, during Saturday night’s game. Allen played through a broken left hand, but injured his left leg.
Neither player’s status for this Saturday’s game with Texas was known at this time.
