Attrition on the roster was bound to happen after Steve Sarkisian’s first season, especially with the amount of talent incoming from the 2022 class.
Sarkisian consistently emphasized that he wanted to totally revamp the roster and bring in over 30 new scholarship players to turn around a program that went 5-7 during his first year. In order to hit that number, like coach Bo Davis said, players should hit the portal if they didn’t want to be there.
The Longhorns just lost another player to the portal, which was expected, as it was reported by Inside Texas on Friday that fourth-year quarterback Casey Thompson has decided to transfer.
Casey Thompson is in the transfer portal as a grad transfer, @InsideTexas has learned. #HookEm pic.twitter.com/lNcZbMhZJ8
— Joe Cook (@josephcook89) December 17, 2021
Thompson is someone who flirted with the portal before during the Sam Ehlinger era, but decided to come back and wait out his turn to start. He was heralded as the surefire starter for this season, after his electric Alamo Bowl performance in relief of the injured Ehlinger that saw him toss four touchdowns.
However, things became a little uncertain when Sarkisian was hired as Thompson essentially had to start with a clean slate and duke it out with Hudson Card for the staring spot.
It seemed as if it was Thompson’s job to lose, which he eventually would, as during the offseason he struggled with turning the ball over in practices.
However, after winning the first game against Louisiana, Card got off to a horrible start against Arkansas, and was benched in favor of Thompson who although couldn’t bring the team back to victory, he made the loss look a tad more respectable by leading multiple scoring drives.
Sarkisian then decided that a permanent change was needed at quarterback and gave Thompson the nod, which certainly seemed like the right choice. Texas would go on to win three straight, and build a 21-point first quarter lead against Oklahoma. However, Thompson clearly hurt his hand on a play during that game, and not only did he never return to the form we had seen in the first half of the game, but Texas would go on to lose five more games after that.
Thompson was never the same after the Oklahoma game, as he was clearly playing hurt and had less velocity and accuracy than he normally did, which hurt the team as he threw costly interceptions in multiple games. He would then go on to rotate in and out with Card the rest of the season.
He finished the season with 2,113 yards passing, 24 touchdowns, and nine interceptions.
Another huge factor in this decision was likely the fact Texas is bringing in quarterback sensation Quinn Ewers who is one of the highest ranked players ever. Sarkisian can say whatever he wants about making the remaining quarterbacks compete, but when you land a talent like Ewers, it is evident that he will be the starter. Thompson likely saw the writing on the wall, and was aware how hard it would be to beat out Quinn Ewers, Hudson Card, and Maalik Murphy.
Thompson is reportedly entering as grad transfer, and even though his name entered the database today, he already has a 247Sports crystal ball prediction to TCU.