UT endures another year of QB instability
Buechele, Ehlinger have their moments, but job will be open to all comers in 2018
It has been eight years since Colt McCoy led Texas to the BCS national championship game.
The Longhorns compiled a 45-8 record under his four-year stewardship, won three bowls — McCoy’s 26-yard touchdown pass to Quan Cosby with 16 seconds left sealed a 2008 Fiesta Bowl victory over Ohio State — and claimed a Big 12 Conference championship in 2009.
Since McCoy exited, UT’s quarterback carousel has been a jittery, nausea-inducing ride. Stability remains an elusive concept. A jumbled assortment of eight starters have gone 52-48 with a 2-2 bowl record and one Top 25 finish in the season’s final Associated Press poll.
The search for an embraceable McCory heir has made those eight years feel like eight decades. It wasn’t his younger brother, Case. It wasn’t David Ash, who endured a frightening number of career-shortening concussions. It wasn’t Garrett Gilbert or Tyrone Swoops or Jerrod Heard.
“We’re here for a reason,” coach Tom Herman said in October, “and that’s to rebuild this thing from a bunch of years of mediocrity and sub-mediocrity. We understand that that’s going to take time.”
No revolving doors at top
Herman can’t complete his program rebuild without a legitimate, no-doubt, this-is-our-guy quarterback. Look at the four teams in this year’s College Football Playoff: Oklahoma has Heisman winner Baker Mayfield; Kelly Bryant, DeShaun Watson’s successor at Clemson, threw for 2,678 yards with 13 touchdowns and ran for 646 with 11 scores; Alabama’s Jalen Hurts threw for 1,940 yards, rushed for 768 more and combined for 23 touchdowns; Georgia true freshman Jacob Fromm (21 touchdowns, five interceptions) was as reliable as any signal-caller in the country.
Missouri quarterback Drew Lock isn’t often, if ever, mentioned among the nation’s top crop of quarterbacks, despite throwing for 43 touchdowns and nearly 3,700 yards. Lock, not Fromm or Auburn’s Jarrett Stidham, was selected to the All-SEC first team. And now he’s standing in the way of UT’s first winning season since 2013.
“I don’t know why he’s under the radar,” Herman said. “This is a guy that led FBS in touchdown passes. He’s on a six-game run that’s as good as there is in the country.”
Lock threw all but 10 of Missouri’s passes this season. That’s an almost unfathomable level of permanence compared to what Texas went through.
Sophomore Shane Buechele and true freshman Sam Ehlinger started six games apiece. The latter was prolific but a gambler.
Both were beset by numerous injuries. Fused into a single entity, they threw for 3,153 yards, 16 touchdowns and 11 interceptions and ran for 451 (364 by Ehlinger) and four scores.
“We feel like both those guys have had ups and down, had some really good parts of the season and have made some mistakes throughout the course of the season,” offensive coordinator Tim Beck said. “We’ve got two competitive guys, two talented guys. I think nine of the 12 games one of the two was injured so the other guy had to be in there the whole time. I don’t know that it was ever a true competition once the season got going.”
Freshmen to join the mix
Regardless of what happens Wednesday in the Academy Sports + Outdoors Texas Bowl at NRG Stadium, the starting job will again be up for grabs as soon as this year comes to a close. And a pair of incoming fourstar
freshmen, Cameron Rising (Newbury Park, Calif.) and Casey Thompson (Newcastle, Okla.), will be granted every chance to seize the job.
“As long as we have quarterbacks, they will all compete,” Herman said. “It’s a really unique year. I’ve never seen a Division I program have to go through a season with two scholarship quarterbacks, but we did. We had to sign two because ideally you’d want four, sometimes five in that room. Now, ideally you’d like them all in maybe a different class and you’re playing old guys or older guys, not sophomores and freshmen.
“You can’t just snap your fingers and wake up and Shane’s a senior and Sam’s a junior. They are what they are. So those guys will compete. I think maybe the misconception because they get labeled by recruiting services as dual-threat and pro style. I don’t know what that means. Cameron Rising can run. He can run good enough to run our offense, I can tell you that. Casey Thompson can throw the football.”
Maybe Thompson is the answer. Maybe it’s Rising. Or maybe an escalation in competition causes a sea change in Ehlinger or Buechele or both.
For now, Texas will do what it’s done since McCoy left — search.