If there's one thing Texas Tech football fans love, it's a good dose of pessimism.

We've already taken a look at what the perfect, best-case scenario would be for the Red Raiders, so it's only fair if we do the opposite.

What would be the worst possible scenario for the 2024 season? If things can be really good, they can also go really, really bad. This is how that could happen.

Quarterback health remains unlucky for Texas Tech football

Things go off the rails quickly as Behren Morton suffers an early-season injury — perhaps it's his shoulder again, maybe it's something else — that takes the starting quarterback out of action for a few weeks. Cameran Brown takes his place and performs well but tweaks his leg on a scramble away from the defense, forcing Tech to use a true freshman (Will Hammond) for the second year in a row. Morton returns eventually but is still not 100%.

Offensive line's camp struggles don't get corrected

Having one returning starter up front in Caleb Rogers, who's also switching positions — to where is still in question — there's a lot at stake for the offensive line. McGuire has been keen on Toledo transfer Vinny Sciury cementing himself at left guard. Outside of he and Rogers, there are questions, inexperience and in some cases both. That proves problematic after the unit got pushed around in the team's first scrimmage of camp. In this scenario, the true best starting five never really presents itself, leading to a diminished running game and quarterbacks having to scramble for safety on most pass attempt, leading to an off-kilter passing game.

Offense becomes too one-dimensional again

It's not impossible to find balance on offense, but that hasn't really been the bread and butter for Texas Tech in quite some time. Offensive coordinator Zach Kittley promises to find that cohesion between run and pass, but if the offensive line doesn't get better, if Morton goes down with an injury again, it could make the offense one-dimensional. This could mean either forcing Tahj Brooks the ball just to get the record or overpassing to keep all the receiving options happy. Whichever it is, the offense becomes predictable, and there's no real shot of changing it up because of the circumstances.

Interchangeable depth on defense not necessarily a good thing

Everybody loves having depth. It's a crucial part to a football team. But sometimes having interchangeable parts isn't always the best thing. Sometimes you need a couple players to stand out above the rest, to take the reins of a unit. What if, sometime during the season, defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter discovers a deficiency on defense that needs to be covered up. Is that really achievable if all the players from a position group are more or less the same kind of talent?

Bowl streak comes to an end

Quite frankly, it would take all of these things combined for Texas Tech to completely miss out on a bowl game. But until the games are played, everything is on the table. Based on the easy first half of the schedule, this should be the complete disaster scenario where injuries pile up, neither side of the ball is holding up their end of the bargain and those cupcake, non-conference games become more like trips to the dentist where a root canal is needed. Will this happen? Probably not, but if you start pulling at one string, the entire shirt could unravel in a hurry.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: What's Texas Tech football's worst-case scenario for the 2024 season?