Texas Football: Ranking the 5 best quarterbacks since Colt McCoy

The ultra-athletic and powerful Tyrone Swoopes was an interesting case with the Horns. By his senior season, Swoopes was pretty much exclusively used in running packages and short yardage situations. Former Texas head football coach Charlie Strong did have a good use for him during the 2015 and 2016 seasons.

In fact, through his final two seasons of his college career, Swoopes racked up 19 touchdown rushes and more than four yards per carry. Over the course of his entire career with the Horns, Swoopes totaled nearly 1,000 rushing yards and 24 touchdowns on the ground.

The value that Swoopes provided did not come with his arm, it mainly came with his legs. He had seven more touchdown runs than passes. And, he consistently ran into interception issues when he was used as a regular quarterback on a consistent basis. Yet, he never tossed more interceptions than touchdowns in a single season (aside from one interception and no touchdown passes his senior year).

Swoopes was an underrated necessity for a rough period for the Texas football program. When used properly, Swoopes was a force to be reckoned with in the ground game for the Horns. The problem for Swoopes on a list like this is that he was not a good traditional quarterback, and Texas didn’t find much of any success during his four years in Austin.