Texas Football: Colt McCoy in rare group of championship-less QB’s

In another rewind for the Texas football program, we look back on the statistical anomaly that was Colt McCoy not winning a National Championship.

Coming close to winning a national title, but ultimately coming up just short, is the perfect way to sum up how the 2009-10 season ended for Colt McCoy and the Texas football program. McCoy might have won his first and only national title with Texas back during the 2009-10 season, if not for an injury early in the first quarter in that decisive game against the Alabama Crimson Tide.

The Texas Longhorns football program last had a legit shot at winning a national title back during the 2009 season, when McCoy was injured early on against the Crimson Tide. Then freshman highly touted quarterback Garrett Gilbert was thrown into the spotlight too early, and the Longhorns fumbled away their shot at getting their second title in a span of four years.

However, the fact that McCoy fell short of that ultimate prize to cap the 2009 season by no means diminished the accomplishments he had in college. McCoy was one of the best quarterbacks in program history, and put together maybe the most impressive season statistically in 2009.

Not only was the career passing efficiency for McCoy among the best of any quarterback in the history of the Big 12, of the Longhorns program, it presents a conundrum that can only be explained by an injury at an unfortunate time. McCoy had one of the best completion percentages and passer efficiency ratings since the turn of the century, in 2008 and 2009.

In 2008, McCoy completed more than 76 percent of his passing attempts. That is good for the best in the country during that season. Even when he completed slightly over 70 percent of his passing attempts during the 2009 campaign, that was still good for tops in the nation. His career completion percentage of 70.3 is the second best in the history of college football, and the best in Big 12 history.

Moreover, the passer efficiency rating of McCoy shattered some records too. He had the third best passer efficiency rating in the country in 2008, and tops in the Big 12 in 2009. His career passer efficiency rating of 155.0 is good to place him among the 15 best in the Big 12, dating back to the turn of the century.

Where the real statistical anomaly comes about with McCoy is the company he joined with his elite numbers and the fact that he has no national title rings to his name from college. There are 11 quarterbacks since 2000 in the FBS that had at least 26 individual games with a passer efficiency rating of 160 or better, and McCoy is one of them.

Of those 11 quarterbacks that meet that criteria, only seven of them played at a Power Five program. And among those seven, only three went without winning a National Championship at some point during their college career. A good portion of those four that did win a title played for Alabama, including Tua Tagovailoa, A.J. McCarron, and Jalen Hurts.

Yet, the three that didn’t have a somewhat common pattern between them. One of the three quarterbacks in this group that doesn’t have a title just fell short, which was Aaron Murray of the Georgia Bulldogs. But the other two were Big 12 quarterbacks that encompassed three different teams in their careers and still didn’t win a title.

One of those is the former Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Tech Red Raiders quarterback Baker Mayfield and the other is McCoy. Mayfield posted a resounding 34 individual games in college with a passer efficiency rating of at least 160. That’s almost 10 more than McCoy.

The common denominator remains between Mayfield and McCoy that Big 12 quarterbacks, even as elite as they were, had trouble winning national titles over the course of the last 12 years. Not a single Big 12 team brought home a national title since Vince Young did for Texas to cap the 2005-06 season.