Brown's Longhorns familiar with Tech QBs like Doege
BY BETSY BLANEY Associated Press
Saturday, November 03, 2012
11/03/12 at 5:16 AM
LUBBOCK, Texas - Texas coach Mack Brown has seen quarterbacks such as Seth Doege at Texas Tech.
On Saturday, Doege and the No. 20 Red Raiders' receiving corps will challenge a Texas pass defense that's giving up 229 yards a game, while Texas Tech is averaging 358 yards through the air.
Brown thinks Doege, who's thrown for 30 touchdowns and 2,540 yards this season, is one of the nation's best quarterbacks and is similar in accuracy and competitiveness to former Red Raiders signal-callers Graham Harrell and Kliff Kingsbury.
Doege deserves to be in the conversation for the Heisman Trophy, Brown said.
"His name should be right in the middle of that list, in my estimation," Brown said. "He's the No. 7 passer in the country, No. 1 in TD passes. I don't know how you keep that guy out of the Heisman race as you look at it."
Doege got press as a dark-horse contender for the Heisman before the Red Raiders fell 55-24 at No. 3 Kansas State last week. Going into that game, Doege had thrown 13 touchdowns in wins over West Virginia and TCU.
Against the Horned Frogs he found Alex Torres in the middle of the end zone for a career-best seventh touchdown in the Red Raiders' 56-53 win in triple overtime in Fort Worth.
Texas has won back-to-back games, most recently a slim 21-17 victory at Kansas. Starter David Ash was pulled from the game and backup Case McCoy's one-yard touchdown pass to D.J. Grant with 12 seconds left gave the Longhorns the win.
Texas Tech coach Tommy Tuberville said the defense will be prepared to play against Ash, who was named the starter for Saturday's game earlier his week.
"But we'll prepare for both" quarterbacks, he said. "But most of the time, and we'll do it in this game, is prepare for the offense, because you can't run two different offenses."
Brown said he wouldn't hesitate to turn to McCoy again if circumstances warrant taking Ash out. He called it a "tremendous situation" to have two good choices.
"That is no different than any other position except it gets more publicity," he said. "You play the guy that does the best. Throughout the year David has done a great job. Saturday he struggled, and Case did the best."
