Texas Football: 10 best quarterbacks all-time for the Longhorns

2. Colt McCoy (2006-2009)

There’s no doubt in my mind as to who the top two quarterbacks in program history are for the Longhorns. And the special part about this is the short span of time in which they were the starting quarterback for Texas.

It’s hard to imagine Texas getting a much better stretch of quarterback play throughout most of the 2000s, which capped maybe the most prolific pro-style quarterback ever for this team in Colt McCoy. As the Longhorns starting quarterback for four seasons, McCoy was a stud right from the get-go.

McCoy led Texas to a top-15 finish as a freshman, where he tossed 29 passing touchdowns and just seven interceptions. And Texas only got better from there in terms of the team’s success with McCoy as the starting quarterback.

In fact, McCoy led the Longhorns to an impressive record of 25-2 in his final two seasons in college. That included two top-three Heisman voting finishes in 2008 and 2009.

And there’s always going to be that argument made by Texas fans (and even some generic college football fans) that the Longhorns would’ve won the 2010 BCS National Championship Game over Alabama had McCoy not gotten injured early on and thrown Garrett Gilbert into the fire. But that’s just speculation.

Texas fans will always appreciate what McCoy did for this program, and he deserves the recognition as one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever do it in the burnt orange.

1. Vince Young (2002-2005)

Without a doubt, the best quarterback in program history for the Longhorns will also go down as one of the best in recent memory around college football too. Former Heisman-winning quarterback Vince Young took the Longhorns to new heights in the mid-2000s. That included the famed win in the 2006 Rose Bowl over the USC Trojans to win the most recent National Championship for this program.

Young only got better during his three seasons actually playing for Texas. He was the starting quarterback for two full seasons, in 2004 and 2005. During that span of seasons, Young amassed nearly 5,000 passing yards, 38 passing touchdowns, 21 interceptions, more than 2,000 rushing yards, and 26 rushing scores.

Most impressive was the fact that Young only had one loss in two seasons as the starting quarterback. And that lone loss came at the hands of No. 2 Oklahoma in 2004.

Young and the Longhorns came up with a whopping seven wins over ranked teams in 2004 and 2005, highlighted by triumphs over No. 1 USC in the Rose Bowl and the No. 4 Ohio State Buckeyes on the road in 2005.