Texas Football: Would a Jalen Hurts grad transfer be good for the Longhorns?

At first thought, the possibility of landing Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts is intriguing for Texas football for a number of reasons.

One of the more interesting parts of each and every off-season in the college football world nowadays is the graduate transfer scene. For this past off-season, Texas football landed two instant impact graduate transfers that will able to fill huge voids left by departing players and areas that were hurting in depth already.

Those two graduate transfers that came in were the former Cal Golden Bears running back Tre Watson and Rice Owls left tackle Calvin Anderson. With both Watson and Anderson gone after the 2018 campaign for the Longhorns, those grad transfers aren’t long-term solutions by any means. Yet, sometimes teams can land grad transfers that still have two years of eligibility left.

The new NCAA redshirt rule that was announced during the 2018 off-season gives a lot more of a strategic approach to player eligibility. Since players can now play in four games now without burning a redshirt and foregoing and entire year of eligibility, coaches can get more of a look at players that will ultimately redshirt.

One of the hotter names that could come about on the grad transfer market for the upcoming off-season is now the backup quarterback of the Alabama Crimson Tide in Jalen Hurts. This season will be Hurts’ junior campaign, which would only give him one year of eligibility left if he plays out more than four games.

ESPN’s Jalen Rose gave Hurts some advice from his own perspective in saying that he should transfer before he loses the full year of eligibility so that he can still get his opportunity in the spotlight.

Alabama head football coach Nick Saban named sophomore Tua Tagovailoa as the starter this fall, which leaves Hurts in a background role. Ultimately, Hurts carries a record of 26-2 as a starter and totaled 25 touchdowns to just one interception last year. Any quarterback that did that while leading his squad to two national title games deserves quite a bit of attention on the transer market.

As this situation pertains to the Horns, since this program is having a lot of quarterback issues really since Colt McCoy departed campus this could make some sense to pursue Hurts. Texas hasn’t gone after a quarterback on the grad transfer market under Charlie Strong or Tom Herman. This would be the biggest splash they could’ve made to date by landing Hurts.

Sophomore quarterback Sam Ehlinger got off on the wrong foot this season with the 34-29 season-opening loss to the Maryland Terrapins. Texas could also have a quarterback grad transfer of its own in junior Shane Buechele. Both the quarterback depth and the immediate need for an answer under center could get answered for a year or two with Hurts on the Forty Acres.

Lastly, Texas has some talented freshman quarterbacks on campus already and one on the way in 2019 four-star dual-threat prospect Roschon Johnson. The bridge between Cameron Rising, Casey Thompson, and Johnson being ready to start and the Horns trying to take some steps forward could be pulled together with Hurts at the helm. This would make a lot of sense for Texas football.