MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire was prepared to gush over his quarterback — like, seriously, his signal caller’s first name had just escaped his mouth to kickstart a story of resiliency and toughness — when Behren Morton strode past his line of sight.
“There he is,” McGuire said. “No. 2 on the field, No. 1 in your heart.”
The newsworthiness of this interaction didn’t lie in the verbal exchange — especially given the well-documented shared adoration between the Red Raiders’ head coach and his players — but rather in the physical happenstance of it all.
Morton walked completely unencumbered from his breakout session podium at Hard Rock Stadium, past McGuire’s stand and to the Big Ten Network set where his next round of interviews were set.
Sports Roundup
OK, sure, it sounds mundane.
It might represent the edge that can propel Tech into the semifinals.
Morton, a fifth-year quarterback, played the second half of the season with a hairline fracture in his right fibula and spent nearly two months in a walking boot because of it. The Red Raiders (12-1) went undefeated with Morton behind center despite that, averaged 40.6 points per game in the five games he played after his injury and earned a first-round bye into the College Football Playoff quarterfinals.
Thursday, against Oregon (12-1) in the Orange Bowl, they’ll have a healthier Morton than they’ve had in over two months.
“I just want to play healthy,” Morton said. “How much better can I be when I’m healthy? I kind of look at it that way. If I can do this while being injured, how much is the ceiling of being healthy? What can I do?”
Morton was unable to participate in full practices after he suffered the injury in an Oct. 11 game vs. Kansas, wore the boot throughout each week, took it off for games and put it back on afterwards. McGuire allowed Morton to practice without the boot once before the Big 12 championship game. He hasn’t worn it since Tech’s 34-7 win vs. BYU at Arlington’s AT&T Stadium and has been “100 percent in practice as far as team reps” since.
Related
“It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to do that,“ Morton said. ”I think it’s been good that we’ve had this time off.”
Morton acknowledged that the fracture caused him “quite a bit of pain” and will remain an ailment that he’ll need to navigate. That’s not unfamiliar territory for the oft-hobbled Eastland native. He suffered a grade five AC joint sprain two seasons ago after he was named starter midyear, played through it for the majority of last season and underwent surgery once it concluded. He exited Tech’s season opener vs. Arkansas Pine Bluff this season with a lower leg injury, suffered a head injury three games later against Utah and fractured his fibula against the Jayhawks two games after that.
He’s missed only three total games in the last two years despite that.
“It kind of rallies your team a little bit,” Tech wide receiver Coy Eakin said. “To see your quarterback go through some pain and understand that he’s hurting really bad and still going out there and playing his butt off, executing the details day in and day out, there is no excuse to be tired, there’s no excuse to be lazy.”
The three-plus weeks of layoff between the conference championship game and Tech’s first playoff game, Morton said, allowed him to devote more focus to football versus rehab for the first time in months.
“My health wise, when I’m healthy, I think the offense expands a lot,” Morton said. “We have so many playmakers, though, it makes my job easy. Whoever I can find open, get the ball to them quick, we can be really explosive.”
That could give the Red Raiders an edge in a game that will already feature arguably the nation’s best defense opposite one of its most high-powered offenses. Tech’s defense (the country’s top-ranked unit per Pro Football Focus) and Oregon’s offense (the country’s third-ranked unit) are close to evenly matched.
The Ducks’ defense — which allowed more than 20 points only once in regulation during the regular season — is where a theoretical mismatch exists against a Tech offense that’s been banged up and isn’t as high-octane as those of the program’s past. The duo of BYU and UCF, which Tech averaged 37 points against in three games, might’ve been the best defenses that the Red Raiders faced in conference play. The Ducks are at the very least a tier above both.
Morton’s health could narrow the gap. The Red Raiders, per PFF, had five of their seven best offensive performances before Morton’s injury and four of their five worst after it. He isn’t inherently a mobile quarterback, but he was was sacked only once per game on average before the injury and more than twice per game on average after it, in part because of an inability to extend plays with his legs.
The Ducks pressure quarterbacks in more than 10% of all pass-rush situations. Morton performed worse under pressure after his injury than before it and will now face an Oregon defense that includes projected first-round draft pick defensive lineman A’Mauri Washington, second-team All-Big 10 defensive lineman Bear Alexander and edge rusher Matayo Uiagalelei (No. 40 on PFF’s 2026 NFL draft big board).
“I think he is a good quarterback,” Uiagalelei said. “He gets the ball to his best players. I think they’re pretty balanced, they have multiple running backs that are pretty good, a lot of big wide receivers, tight ends that can catch the ball. I think it’s a combination of everything that makes them so good.”
Morton, Oregon defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi said, “runs the offense really well.” He acknowledged that Morton’s improved health could add wrinkles to Tech’s offense that it hadn’t shown on film in recent games. He called Morton the “total package” at quarterback and shot down any notion that Tech’s middle-of-the-pack strength of schedule (54th in the country) is any indication of what the offense is or isn’t capable of.
“I certainly don’t go by the paper,” Lupoi said. “I go by the film. It looks pretty darned explosive on film.“
That’s before they had a month to get themselves healthy, too.
“I feel like this extra time has helped us get to that next level,” Eakin said. “I feel like we have a little untapped potential to go play at our highest level these next couple of games.”
Find more Texas Tech coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.