The New Look Texas Longhorns

It’s been awhile since we’ve seen an exciting game from the Longhorns, at least in prime time anyway. Winning games against teams like North Texas and Rice don’t exactly get you excited about the future. Texas played a great game this past Saturday against a well put together Cal football team and a future first round pick in Jared Goff. While Goff walked away with a win after a botched extra point attempt (*sigh* kickers…) and a great day throwing the football (73% completion rate and 3 touchdowns), he didn’t walk away without some doubt towards the end of the game.

Sep 19, 2015; Austin, TX, USA; Texas Longhorns head coach Charlie Strong (center) reacts against the California Golden Bears during the second quarter at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brendan Maloney-USA TODAY Sports

Jared Goff put on a show from a scouting standpoint with his arm, touch and poise that are undeniable. However the guy playing quarterback for the Texas Longhorns put on an even better show for college football fans and for Longhorn hopefuls. Jerrod Heard did something that the Longhorn fan base hasn’t seen since Colt McCoy and not as invigorating since Vince Young. What Heard did was finally make the Longhorns look exciting and not just on one play, the entire game. Texas has always been a defensive school and every year except 2014 they’ve produced players at the NFL level. To put it in perspective since 2008 of the 30 Longhorns drafted only 9 have played offense and only one has been drafted before the 3rd round.

Even with great defensive talent Texas has struggled to win because they’ve had no offense to keep the defense off the field. They’ve had no excitement and no momentum to play off of, it’s pretty much like going to the gym without headphones. Jerrod Heard looks to be the guy to change that, he’s bringing the bass and he’s bringing change to this program. Heard threw for 364 yards and ran for another 188, that’s over 500 all-purpose yards from the QB position. With his performance we also saw a newly refreshed defense, although they gave up a ton of yards they forced a fumble, held Cal to 5 of 13 on third down and recorded a pair of sacks. There were signs of life on both sides of the ball and every quarter brought a new level of intensity.

There’s still a lot of work to be done with this team and I don’t expect Jerrod Heard to put up these kind of numbers every week, but giving us a glance at what he can be and what he can do for this team feeds into the long-term. The new look Texas Longhorns are coming with a new energy and they have a play maker at the helm of it all. This is a young team, if they can continue to produce these kind of outputs and excitement over the next few weeks and into next year watch out, we may be talking about a playoff contender in the future.

More from NFL Mocks

Home/College Football