Playing Swoopes was the right choice for Horns, Mack
FORT WORTH — If they stayed up past the bewitching hour, bleary-eyed Longhorns fans caught a glimpse of the future.
Even though it was way past time that Mack Brown took the wraps off what may be his starting quarterback for 2014.
Long after the outcome was settled in Texas’ overwhelming 30-7 victory over TCU in a lightning-delayed game Saturday night, the head coach trotted out the eagerly awaited Tyrone Swoopes for his collegiate debut.
Swoopes didn’t take anyone’s breath away, but Longhorns fans might breathe a little easier now that he’s seen the playing field.
It was an inauspicious opening night for the true freshman when he entered the game with less than five minutes left and gave up his redshirt season in the seventh game of the year.
He ran the ball three times for minus-2 yards.
He had two pass plays called in, but instead tucked the ball and ran on them.
He handed off magnificently.
But the 6-4, 245-pound specimen sure fills out a uniform.
OK, so the results were somewhat incomplete. However, the message that Brown sent was so loud and clear that he couldn’t have used a megaphone or gotten on the Amon G. Carter Stadium public-address system and made a more obvious statement.
David Ash — the starting quarterback for 21 games in his career, including three this season — appears done for this season, but was at least medically ruled out for this coming Saturday’s Kansas game because he hasn’t been cleared for practice yet.
This team firmly belongs to Case McCoy, the senior who alternated between brilliant and blah on this soggy evening and looked either terrific on deep throws to Marcus Johnson and Kendall Sanders or terrible on two forced throws that were intercepted.
Swoopes just became a critical insurance policy for a 5-2 Texas team that dominated a strong, defensive-minded Horned Frogs club. The Longhorns are showing concrete signs of developing into a legitimate contender for the Big 12 championship and a BCS bowl that comes with that.
Finally playing Swoopes was the right decision. It was just way overdue.
With four consecutive league wins, Texas has a chance to make this a special season. It joins undefeated Baylor as the only unbeaten teams in Big 12 play and should be a prohibitive favorite to beat both Kansas in Austin and lowly West Virginia on the road the following week.
Brown can’t be blamed for not playing Swoopes before Ash went down with a concussion in the BYU debacle. But he missed several opportunities to get Swoopes some experience in the second-half meltdown against Ole Miss, when McCoy couldn’t get anything started, and in the first half against Iowa State, when Texas led 10-0.
“We said we don’t know what David’s situation is down the road,” Brown said, “and we wanted to get Tyrone ready to go. It’s hard to get meaningful time for him when you’re trying to win.”
Juggling playing time for quarterbacks, and especially backups, is a tricky proposition, and it’s never been one of Brown’s best moments. He once famously declined to stick in backup Major Applewhite for an ineffective Chris Simms versus Oklahoma. Nor did he give Garrett Gilbert enough playing time in reserve of Colt McCoy during the 2009 season, and consequently faced trying to knock off Alabama in the national championship with an almost totally green freshman at the Rose Bowl.
But this is too critical a stretch of games for Mack to go into the final five games of the regular season with only one quarterback who’d ever thrown a pass in a college game. One sprained ankle for McCoy, one numbing shot by a pass-rusher, and the Longhorns would have found themselves trying to chase the Fiesta Bowl bid with a quarterback so raw, he’s not even 11 months out of high school.
Swoopes is a wild and erratic passer, and clearly lacks the polish or the playing time to be expected to do much besides give Texas another strong, physical runner out of the backfield. But he’s capable, and — unless Ash returns next fall or four-star pledge Jerrod Heard of Denton Guyer wins the job — he will be the frontrunner to take the first snap next season.
But there’s no time like the present to get him some action under fire. The Vince Young comparisons will unfairly come because of Swoopes’ size and strength and athleticism, but that legendary player had the benefit of a redshirt season. Swoopes does not. But his team needs him now. Or might.
“We wanted him to see he’d better get ready,” Brown said, “and that he’d better practice better. This will give him some experience in a low-pressure situation where he could mess up” and it wouldn’t cripple his team.
McCoy was all for the decision to take the red shirt off Swoopes. He’s no threat to McCoy, just important insurance, and it’d be great to see Swoopes get plenty of snaps against an overmatched Jayhawks team.
“It’s good to get him some live action,” McCoy said. “Your nerves are different when you’re in a game. Tyrone’s going to be successful. He’s definitely a student of the game.”
So’s Mack, and hopefully he won’t have to learn the hard way.
