Texas Football: Ranking every starting quarterback from the last decade

It’s hard to position two of the true dual-threat quarterbacks that the Texas football program utilized under Strong’s direction between 2014 and 2016. Swoopes did have a more complete body of work, but his peak wasn’t as high as that of former Texas quarterback/wide receiver Jerrod Heard.

The reason why Heard’s place on this list is so difficult to determine is that he only spent two years as a quarterback for the Longhorns. After that point, he was converted to wide receiver. Herman and former Texas offensive coordinator Tim Beck made the move away from quarterback for Heard in 2017, and it worked out well.

Heard also had a slightly more productive career during his four years on Austin than Swoopes did. He finished up with more than 1,100 total total yards from scrimmage and nine touchdowns as a runner and wide receiver. His passing numbers totaled up to more than 1,200 passing yards and five touchdowns, with the same number of picks.

The Longhorns never really gave Heard a chance to excel as a thrower. He did help the Longhorns nab upset wins over the Oklahoma Sooners and Kansas State in 2015. He was also a missed extra-point attempt away from knocking off the Cal Golden Bears in the second home-game of the 2015 regular season.

There’s a lot of what-ifs that plague the tenure of Heard as the Texas starting quarterback.