The Texas Tech Defense Gets a Super Bowl Shoutout From Patrick Mahomes
Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid joined the NFL Primetime set after the Chiefs' Super Bowl LIV victory and gave a great interview about the game and their post-Super Bowl plans.
You can watch most of the interview with Chris Rose, LT and Neon Deion below. But the quote from Mahomes I'd like to focus on is at the 5:40 mark.
Mahomes is responding to a question about his time at Texas Tech and how that shaped him into the clutch player he is now that doesn't worry about interceptions and can just come back out to perform like nothing happened.
"I kind of joke around about it sometimes, but I was blessed to be in the Big 12." Mahomes said. "You had to go and score, and if you threw an interception, you got the ball back and had to go back out and score again."
OK, so it was a shout out to the Big 12, but Patrick, that's the understatement of the century.
Shout out to the Texas Tech defense that gave up 43.5 points per game during his two seasons as the full-time starting quarterback. The Red Raiders scored at least 44 points in FIVE different losses with Mahomes at QB. In four of those five losses, the Texas Tech offense scored over 50 points and still lost.
In 2016, Mahomes and the offense put up 55 and 59 points, and went 0-2 in those games. So, yes, Mahomes learned in the Big 12 that he had to score on every drive no matter what happened on the last drive. He played with the worst defense the Big 12 had ever seen at a time when the Big 12 had some of the most prolific offenses in the nation.
On one hand, I'm glad Patrick Mahomes had to score like his life depended on it in Lubbock and that prepared him to never give up and be ruthless at the NFL level. On the other hand, I wish he could have learned other important lessons, like,' how to hold a big lead,' or 'running clock in the 4th quarter while your defense dominates.'
That would have been fun, too.