Bohls: At 37, Colt McCoy is a Hall of Famer who's not ready to step back from football
Colt McCoy’s not done with football.
And he hopes football isn’t done with him.
And why should it? It’s been a rich marriage for the legendary Texas quarterback who, with a 45-8 record, won more games than any other quarterback in college football history at the time after a spectacular 34-2 record in high school.
But if his playing days have ended, McCoy said he’d consider all sorts of avenues. Broadcasting. He worked a few USFL games and was intrigued. Television studio analyst. Podcasts. He works with Josh McCown on a show called “Scheme,” where they break down games.
Even coaching isn’t out of the question.
“I’d have to switch my mindset from a player to being a coach,” McCoy said this week during our "On Second Thought" podcast. “I’ve been in a lot of different offenses. So I have a lot of arrows in my quiver if I ever wanted to go that route. I’m not shutting the door to any of these things.”
Nor to the NFL.
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His pro career hasn’t matched that success, but his 11-25 record as an NFL starter might have more to do with his stints with five losing franchises, starting with the Cleveland club that drafted him in the third round in 2010. After 13 up-and-down seasons, he’s got lots left in his tank and would love a 14th. And more.
So does his phone ring?
“The phone rings a lot,” he said.
Colt McCoy left Texas with everything on the field
It rang recently to inform the 37-year-old former Longhorn that he had been elected to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame along with a former Texas teammate, running back Jamaal Charles, as well as former Longhorns softball pitcher Christa Williams and Texas track coach Bubba Thornton. The banquet will be held in Waco next April.
“It’s a long ways from (hometown) Buffalo Gap,” McCoy said. “I’m extremely honored, but I can’t say that was something that was ever on my radar or a dream of mine.”
When McCoy left Austin after the gut-wrenching loss to Alabama in the 2009 national championship game, he owned 47 school records and had won 15 more games than Vince Young in one more season in his career. His 13,253 passing yards in 2006-09 are more than 2,000 more than Sam Ehlinger had. His 112 touchdowns surpass Ehlinger’s by 18 and almost double third-place Major Applewhite’s 60.
Yeah, he was prolific.
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In short, McCoy more than capably filled Young’s shoes, and the pair set themselves apart as the two best Texas quarterbacks in the school’s modern history, although Bobby Layne set the highest bar for college and pro combined success and James Street didn’t lose a one of his 20 starts and had the 1969 national title to his credit. Street hit more than a few key passes but made his bones running the wishbone. Young and McCoy were the triggers for their teams.
One Texas quarterback's advice to another
McCoy still considers his redshirt season in his first year one of the most valuable in his development and wouldn’t mind seeing third-stringer Arch Manning follow that lead.
“Quinn Ewers has played great this year, and I thought Maalik (Murphy) showed some really good things in his first start,” McCoy said. “For his first start, I thought he played awesome. And I think Arch (Manning) can play, too.
"I’ve told Arch nobody wants to redshirt. But it was the best thing to ever happen to me. I was able to learn. I was able to grow within the system. I was able to watch and see what it looks like. So I knew the challenges that were ahead of me.
"We have all the pieces to run the table.”
The hit felt 'round the Longhorns' world
Texas had those same pieces in 2009 but lost its biggest piece on the fifth snap of the BCS national championship game. Alabama’s Marcell Dareus put a crushing hit on McCoy on a quarterback keeper, leaving him on the sidelines with a severe pinched nerve and a pound of heartache. The pain from the 37-21 defeat — both physically and emotionally — never truly subsided.
“I never experienced anything like it,” McCoy said, recalling the sharp pain as well as the finality of his college career's end. “It was over. There’s been a lot of guys who have a similar injury, and you never really recover from it. I wasn’t ready to play my first year in Cleveland. You just fight and fight and get it back to functional and manageable.”
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McCoy almost certainly would have been a first-round draft pick, and not a third, had he come out after the 2008 season. That Texas team that buried opponents but fell at Texas Tech in the Michael Crabtree game and then lost out to Oklahoma in a tiebreaker to advance to the title game was twice as good as the 2009 one. It’s not close.
“I’m not sure if this is a hot take or not,” McCoy said, “but I think the ’08 team was better than the ’09 team. I always wondered what that ’08 team would be like if Jamaal Charles and (tight end) Jermichael Finley had come back.”
Unstoppable, that’s what it would have been like.
He probably wonders what-if about his pro career but stays in the moment and wonders more what’s next.
Looking for work in a year of quarterback uncertainty
McCoy’s name keeps coming up in discussions about potential quarterbacks for NFL teams shopping for a replacement for their injured starters. But for reasons ranging from financial to future considerations, the perfect opportunity hasn’t matched up with his desire.
“It’d have to be the right fit and the right opportunity,” McCoy said from his Arizona home.
That’s understandable since he’s still under contract with the Arizona Cardinals on the two-year deal he signed in 2022. The agreement paid him a $1,250,000 signing bonus for two years and an annual salary of $3,750,000, even though they surprisingly cut him this preseason.
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In some respects, this has been the year of the backup quarterback.
No fewer than 13 NFL teams have gone with their No. 2s this season because of injuries, and the New York Giants and Las Vegas Raiders have all started a third-string guy. McCoy would love to be one of those backups who gets a shot. He’s basically filled that role since 2011 with five different teams.
“If it’s the right opportunity,” he said, “I’d certainly entertain it.”
He's as reliable a backup or emergency quarterback as there is in the league. And when he got cut by the Cardinals in August after he worked so hard to recover from offseason elbow surgery, McCoy was left to grapple with the limbo he still finds himself in.
It’s not the worst plight. He wakes up healthy — not always a guarantee for someone who has played 13 NFL seasons.
He was once the toast of college football and is well-respected around the league. Only Kellen Moore of Boise State has more victories in college with a 50-3 mark.
He’s about as young and fresh a 37-year-old quarterback as there’s ever been. Only 15 starts since 2011 will keep a guy relatively healthy.
He’s always been productive, never mind his NFL record.
Hey, he spent much of his time with the Browns, a football graveyard for quarterbacks. That club will leave anyone with a blemished record. The franchise goes through quarterbacks the way most people go through iPhones, but the iconic Longhorns quarterback isn’t ready to throw in the towel.
Colt McCoy's next play
He is ready to throw some more passes and might have as a Minnesota Viking or a Los Angeles Ram were it not for contract complications. He played three seasons in Washington, where Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell was on the staff, and knows the Rams’ Sean McVay well.
McCoy, who still lives in Arizona with wife Rachel and their four kids, admits he wouldn’t just up and leave for anywhere. The risk could be greater than the reward.
He could move on to another team but be done after one play. Look at how torn Achilles injuries are claiming quarterbacks right and left. After Aaron Rodgers’ season came to an end with a ruptured Achilles on the Jet’s fourth play of the season opener, the Vikings’ Kirk Cousins suffered the same fate last week.
Interestingly enough, another Cardinals quarterback got that Minnesota job when Joshua Dobbs was signed this week.
Quarterbacks like McCoy and another former Big 12 player, Chase Daniel, are in demand in the NFL. They’re the perfect plug-and-play candidates because they’re film fanatics, cerebral quarterbacks, great locker room teammates and entirely capable of filling a void. Daniel also was on an NFL roster for 13 seasons and played in 74 games, starting just five with a 2-3 record.
Who knows when McCoy's run ends and another begins? In the meantime, he’ll watch college and NFL games, follow his Longhorns, coach his daughters’ volleyball team and play catch with his son.
“I’ve lasted a long time, and I know there’s players more talented than me who didn’t last this long. But there’s a lot outside football,” he said. “The Lord will have a hand in it. I just count my blessings.”
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Former Texas football star Colt McCoy, now 37, eyes his future paths
