Fans of Case McCoy have gotten their fair share of excitement this season. The senior quarterback has already appeared in three games, including one start, and there’s a good chance that more appearances are coming.

Throughout his four-year career, the younger brother of former Texas star Colt McCoy has appeared in 25 games, which is well above the average for a typical backup quarterback. But McCoy hasn’t been a typical backup quarterback. He’s been a starter, a backup and even a third stringer at one point, and his experiences have varied through all those periods.

Texas is also no stranger to this issue of quarterback switches.

“We play behind all of our quarterbacks,” sophomore running back Johnathan Gray said. “When one is down, the other one comes in, we rally around whoever is in the game.”

In his career, McCoy has completed 178 passes, tallying 2,086 yards on 278 attempts. He has also recorded negative 22 yards of rushing on 46 attempts.

McCoy saw little action in his freshman campaign with appearances against Rice and Florida Atlantic, attempting just one pass and one rush through those two games.

In his sophomore season, the Graham native helped fill in after the end of the Garrett Gilbert era. He started in five games and appeared in five others, setting the school record that year for the most consecutive passes to start a career without an interception (124).

While he only started one game in his junior season, he came into four others, and in just the first four weeks of this season, he has almost matched this number of
appearances.

In Texas’ loss to Brigham Young University this season, starter David Ash suffered a head injury that took him out of the rest of the game and the following week against Ole Miss. Against Kansas State, Ash left the game at halftime because of those same injuries. McCoy has appeared in the place of Ash in all of those contests, winning just one.

Statistically there isn’t a huge difference between when McCoy starts and when he comes into games as a backup. When starting he has tallied 1,370 yards with a total QBR of 41.6. When he has come into the game to replace the starter he has tallied 610 yards with a total QBR of 65.12.

In his lone start this season against Ole Miss, McCoy led an inconsistent offense that was held to zero points in the last half.

The senior has had good luck when he gets on the field mid-game. In 2011 — after boos serenaded then-starter Gilbert — McCoy came in and switched off plays with Ash to lead the
Longhorns to an eventual win over the non-conference opponent.

More recently, Texas was down late in the game against the 1-7 Kansas team last season and McCoy came in to lead two fourth quarter touchdowns.

“Case knows when his time comes, he has to strap it on and lead the team to victory,” Gray said. ”Case does a great job of getting the team going and stepping in for David.” 

Fans will most likely get the chance to see McCoy again. With Ash still questionable, McCoy might have the chance in the future to prove he actually is a starting quarterback.