Texas football-ex Garrett Gilbert wants to be No. 2 QB with Cowboys

One of the more notable former Texas football quarterbacks (not always in a good way) of the late 2000s and early 2010s is the former five-star recruit and current Dallas Cowboy Garrett Gilbert. During his college career, Gilbert wound up splitting time between Texas and the SMU Mustangs.

After things didn’t work out too well for him with the Longhorns under former head coach Mack Brown, Gilbert transferred to finish out his career at SMU. He did something similar to what former Texas quarterback Shane Buechele did on the transfer market. Although, Buechele had a much better track record as a college quarterback than Gilbert.

And it looks like Gilbert has a decent shot still to be the backup quarterback for the Cowboys this year behind the former Mississippi State Bulldogs star Dak Prescott. Gilbert did get some playing time with the Cowboys last season under new head coach Mike McCarthy with the Cowboys.

Former Texas football QB Garrett Gilbert could get more snaps for the Cowboys in 2021

In his first career NFL start, Gilbert was decent for the Cowboys but still wound up losing that game. He got snaps in three regular season games last year, which amounted to 243 passing yards, one passing touchdown, and one interception.

And according to a report from an official team release from the Cowboys this week, Gilbert sounds confident that he can take on that role of backup quarterback again in Dallas. Gilbert reportedly is “glad to have normalcy” or some form of it returning to the Cowboys’ quarterback room this offseason.

Here’s some of the important parts of this official release from the Cowboys concerning the former Longhorn Gilbert.

"“You get used to some sorts of those things – getting reps when you’re not used to it, like my time in Cleveland and even prior to that,” Gilbert said. “But to be here for three weeks and go start a game, it’s definitely up there as far as one of the crazier things that I’ve dealt with.”That carries a lot of weight coming from Gilbert in particular. His first brush with notoriety came at Texas, when an injury to Colt McCoy thrust him into the national championship game against undefeated Alabama as a true freshman.In the years since, he’s bounced around seven different NFL rosters, considered a career in coaching and starred in the short-lived Alliance of American Football during the spring of 2019."

This piece mentioned how Gilbert took to the spotlight right away when former legendary Texas quarterback Colt McCoy got hurt against the Alabama Crimson Tide in the BCS National Championship game when he was a freshman. And clearly, while he was unprepared for that level of a spotlight that early in his career, he can learn from that at this point of his NFL journey.

Gilbert has now played for numerous different NFL teams in his career to date. The last two teams he’s played for are the Cowboys and Cleveland Browns. He is about to enter his second season with the Cowboys, which is more stability than he’s ever had with any other team up to this point.

The 29-year-old Buffalo, NY, native Gilbert has now played in bits and pieces of seven games in his NFL career to date. He’s completed just over 52 percent of his passing attempts in those outings, good for 283 passing yards, one passing touchdown, and one interception.