There’s no worse predicament than having questions at the quarterback position, but the Red Raiders are in a unique position regarding that. With plenty to play for in the last games of the 2017 season we still have that golden statement on our mind: two wins and we’re bowl eligible. Yet we’ve said that since we beat Kansas and since then we’ve dropped three seemingly manageable games to West Virginia, Iowa State and Oklahoma.

Up next on our plate is a home game against Kansas State - a structured team that doesn’t go down without a fight and honestly could beat us on the penalty margin alone. After that we go on the road to a neutral with 0-8 Baylor - but despite their record have been showing us more and more fight each week. Then its back home to LBK for what surely will be a crazy matchup with TCU - I don’t even need to clarify how good this team can be. Finally the Red Raiders travel to Austin to duke it out with in-state rival, Tejas Longheeerns - who will always be relevant even when their season is trash.

Disclaimer: Texas Tech is 4-4 on the season and could very well end up going 8-4. In contrast, we could very well end up going 4-8. This article probes a question of where Tech’s future game-plan needs to be aligning itself as the season wraps up. For the sake of where we are the question stands:

Who needs to be getting reps?

Nic Shimonek has been leading this team since the first bout against Eastern Washington. He challenged himself alongside Mahomes and has been a part of this program since 2014 so logic says we continue to play Shimonek. But assess why we would assume his starting position - all compasses point towards the bowl game. The very Texas Tech mark of a successful season. Solely fighting for a bowl game does not seem enough to me, however. The hearts of Texas Tech fans are continuously placed in this hamster wheel of a high during non-conference play, then we hit hope in the middle of the conference play, but by the end of it we’re scratching our heads and wondering how we could have made this season count. 6-6 shouldn’t be success. It can be growth, but it can never be success.

So take a trip with me to the 2018 season. Imagine that we finished out the 2017 season with Shimonek and said our farewells. We open up 2018 with Ole Miss, Lamar and Houston. Someone, either Carter or Duffey, is going to have to step out onto that field and lead that team to success over quality opponents. My curiosity is would we rather have a QB who has only been practicing throughout the summer or a QB who has endured some actual game experience late in the 2017 season? Carter has definitely shown us some promise in the Eastern Washington and Kansas games but has not given us an ounce of what he looks like in high pressure moments. Duffey on the other hand just came off of his suspension from issues off the field and has given us zero looks on how his form is.

The hard question to ask ourselves is: do we want to trust Shimonek to finish this season out and at least get us two more wins, or do we want to start playing another quarterback more and prepare them for this upcoming season? There are a surprising amount of college teams around the country that have gone to their second and third string players and found incredible success. Maybe Texas Tech could be one of those as well.

What do you guys think?