Texas Football: Recapping the Longhorns’ Biggest 2015 Offseason News so Far

Sean Taylor

June 23, 2015

A lot has happened since our last Longhorns offseason recap. They’ve played their annual spring game, seen their brief NFL draft drought come to an end and had their highest-profile recruits from the last two seasons finally see the field.

At the same time, much remains unchanged for this team, which is ominous at this point. The quarterback battle is as unclear as ever, some of the best talent is still the youngest on the team, and out of nowhere, recruiting has hit the skids.

Perhaps the summer enrollees can fill the voids and get people excited about this team again. Along with the quarterback battle, they’ll be the most intriguing storyline of the summer.

With two years of college under his belt, Swoopes was well ahead of Heard in terms of how he reads the defense and makes decisions throwing the ball, as Scout.com’s Chip Brown noted before spring practice.

“If you put [Heard] on the white board right now and told him to diagram a pass play and why that play is set up the way it is and what to look for from the defense in the way it could/should defend the QB’s first and second read, Heard is confused, and is still far behind TyroneSwoopes,” Brown said.

But as expected, Heard’s athleticism and competitive nature began to shine through. The former top recruit started to really put on a show at the end of spring practice, prompting Charlie Strong to tell the media he had “really closed the gap.”