The 30 best college football quarterbacks of the 21st century

• 2X Heisman Trophy finalist (2008, 2009)
• 2X First-Team All-American (2008, 2009)
• Manning Award (2009), Maxwell Award (2009), 2X Walter Camp Award (2008, 2009), Davey O’Brien Award (2009)

Whenever Colt McCoy took the starting quarterback position over for the Texas Longhorns, he had tremendous shoes to fill in Austin. McCoy used his redshirt in the 2005 season as Mack Brown’s Longhorns went undefeated and won a National Championship behind Vince Young. With Young leaving, though, McCoy took over and aimed to keep Texas in the limelight.

The then-young quarterback performed admirably in his redshirt freshman season, leading the Longhorns to a 10-3 record and putting up solid numbers — 2,570 yards, 29 touchdowns and seven interceptions. McCoy and Texas again went 10-3 the following season as McCoy was a bit more turnover prone with 18 interceptions, though he still threw for 3,303 yards and 22 scores.

McCoy’s junior season, however, was the best individual mark of his career. The quarterback came out firing, completing an unreal 76.7 percent of his passes for 3,859 yards, 34 touchdowns and eight interceptions in addition to 11 rushing touchdowns as he led the Longhorns to a 12-1 record and a Fiesta Bowl win. That effort earned McCoy the Heisman runner-up honor while also giving Texas a final ranking of No. 3 in the AP Poll.

While McCoy’s production dipped in his final season to 3,521 yards, 27 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, the Longhorns went undefeated in the regular season and made it to the BCS National Championship Game. Unfortunately, they lost to Alabama in that matchup, but the quarterback completed a remarkable career with a big final season.