Texas Football: 3 most disappointing Mack Brown blue chip recruits

A more well-recognized name that would appear on any list of the bigger Longhorn recruiting busts not just under Brown’s direction, but throughout the recent history of the program, is former five-star recruit and quarterback Garrett Gilbert. This was a classic case of a player getting tossed into the fire way too early to be comfortable and it not working out well over the long haul.

What’s actually pretty incredible about Gilbert’s football career up to this point is how he’s made  a recovery to get back into the NFL so many years after his roller coaster ride of a college career ended. Although he didn’t really get that many snaps with either team, Gilbert was on the roster for the Carolina Panthers and Cleveland Browns over the course of the last two seasons.

He got on the Browns roster at least after a good stint in a spring football league that didn’t last all that long (with the Orlando Apollos in the Alliance of American Football).

However, Gilbert was a former elite five-star recruit that is one of the highest rated in modern history for the Longhorns. He came to the Forty Acres with the expectation that he would have the torch passed to him from the superstar signal caller Colt McCoy. But when McCoy went down injured against the Alabama Crimson Tide in the 2009 BCS National Championship Game, Gilbert was tossed out to the wolves all too early.

Gilbert would toss two touchdowns and four picks in that title game loss to Alabama. He would finish his entire run at Texas with 3,301 passing yards, 13 passing touchdowns, 23 interceptions, 400 rushing yards, six touchdowns on the ground, and a measly quarterback efficiency rating around 107. The SMU Mustangs took Gilbert in after his first three years in college were done.