What If Baker Mayfield Would Have Stayed At Texas Tech?

Rewind to 2013, Texas Tech is heading into the season with three quarterbacks Michael Brewer, Davis Webb, and Baker Mayfield. Brewer was the presumable starter but after nagging injuries he was not able to suit up to begin the season. This left the role of starter up to either Davis Webb or Baker Mayfield. Webb was a highly sought after recruit coming out of high school and participated in the Elite 11. Mayfield was a much less talked about recruit, he held a few lower-level FBS offers but wanted to try his luck and walk-on at Texas Tech.

Baker Mayfield made history when he was chosen to start the 2013 season against SMU. He became the first freshmen walk-on to start at quarterback for a major college program. Mayfield performed well too, throwing for 413 yards along with 4 touchdowns and no interceptions. He would then start the next 4 games before going down to injury. After starting the first 5 games of the season, Mayfield was forced to miss 4 games towards the end of the season. He would return to play against Kansas State, Baylor and Texas. But it was Davis Webb who got the nod against Arizona State in the Holiday Bowl and Mayfield would eventually transfer to Oklahoma.

But what if Mayfield would have stayed? What if it would have been Mayfield and Webb battling it out last year to become the starting quarterback? Would we even know who Patrick Mahomes is? If someone flexed their bicep would we automatically think of Patty Ice?

Baker Mayfield played in the majority of 8 games while he was at Texas Tech, so let's take a look at his first 8 games versus Patrick Mahomes' first 8 games. Mahomes' games start at the Oklahoma 2014 game since that was the first game in which he played the majority of the game.

From the above stats you can see that Patrick Mahomes clearly outperformed Baker Mayfield in their first 8 games at Texas Tech. Mahomes threw for 840 more yards so about 105 more yards a game and threw 16 more touchdowns which is an average of 2 more touchdowns a game. While their interceptions were pretty close, Mahomes was able to answer his interceptions with touchdowns.

When it comes to rushing, Mayfield ran the ball almost 30 more times than Mahomes in his first 8 games but only averaged 2.2 yards a carry. Mahomes on the other hand averaged 4.7 yards a carry which would be acceptable for what a starting running back would average. Mahomes also had 3 more rushing touchdowns.

So if Baker Mayfield would have stayed, would he have kept Patrick Mahomes from seeing the field? I say no because Davis Webb was going to be the "guy" after his bowl game performance and he would have been the one to try to keep Mahomes on the sideline, but we all know how that's worked out.