4 former Texas football players who turned into studs elsewhere

Shane Buechele, QB

There was a point in time where former Texas quarterbacks and fellow four-star recruits Shane Buechele and Sam Ehlinger were duking it out to figure out who would be the starter. During Herman’s first two years at the helm, Buechele and Ehlinger each got a good amount of playing time. But as the 2018 campaign moved along, it became clear that Ehlinger would be the future signal-caller for this program.

As a result, Buechele put his name in the transfer portal during the 2019 offseason. That led to him landing with head coach Sonny Dykes and the SMU Mustangs. Buechele and the Mustangs would have two very explosive years on offense, en route to them becoming one of the best teams in the American Athletic Conference in 2019 and 2020.

SMU went from being a middling program, at the very best, in the AAC to a consistent conference title contender in each of the last two seasons. Buechele deserves a lot of the credit for that rise of SMU. He was solid when he was the Texas starting quarterback early in his college career, and really developed into a top-tier passer in Dallas.

In his two years playing for SMU, Buechele registered just over 7,000 passing yards, 57 passing touchdowns, 16 interceptions, and just over 200 rushing yards and four rushing scores. Buechele would wind up being a two-time All-AAC quarterback and is now one of the top 10 or 15 prospects at his position in the 2021 NFL Draft class.