Donovan Smith is officially looking for a new place to call home

Dec 5, 2022 - 8:15 PM

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After three seasons with Texas Tech, quarterback Donovan Smith has decided to enter the transfer portal and will be looking for a new place to call home.

Smith played in 21 games for the Red Raiders. He finishes his career here with a 64.2% completion percentage after going 231-360 for 2686 yards and 19 touchdowns in the air with 10 interceptions. He also had 132 attempts for 261 yards and 10 touchdowns and added a catch for 15 yards and one touchdown.

Smith as we all know stepped up and saved this team last year with some great performances that lead us to bowl game. This season he stepped up again with another Tyler Shough injury and was the starter for a long stretch until the team decided to go with Behren Morton.

Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images

Smith has all the potential to be a solid dual-threat quarterback at the highest level of college football, but his inconsistency issues cost him a chance to remain the starting quarterback here at Tech. Too often he would make silly mistakes that someone with his level of experience shouldn’t be making, mostly in the passing game. His ability to run is a huge advantage for him, and he runs smart even though he has the frame to be a bruiser.

I’m not surprised by the move, and think it’s the best option moving forward for both sides. Unless he was willing to change positions, the quarterback room of Morton and Shough is only getting stronger with incoming freshman Jake Strong. There is a system that suits Smith very well, it just isn’t the one that we’re running here at Tech. Having the ability to run is key, but making the accurate throws that move the chains is more important and is the reason why Smith fell behind the other guys.

Where do I see him going? With too many moves left to be made and many quarterbacks entering the transfer portal it’s hard to pinpoint one. A few crazy ones that me as a huge fan of Smith could see are Notre Dame, Boston College and NC State. Boise State also has an opening, so that could be a possibility as well.

I just see him as a Power-5 quarterback that just needs to go to a system that fits him the best. Notre Dame has had a lot of success with dual-threat quarterbacks in recent history. Boston College is a team that didn’t live up to expectations and lost their starting quarterback recently, so that would be a fun move. NC State is a familiar foe that lost their guy but has a solid group of running backs that could use a dual-threat quarterbacks to make that team dangerous.

Personally I just want to thank Donovan for all that he did for Tech. We could’ve been out of a bowl game last year if he didn’t play the way that he did, but he was great at times and made the plays necessary for us to win. Even this year he started off hot, and I can’t wait to see what team picks him up.