Former Texas Longhorns QB Embracing New Home & Career

The last time former Texas Longhorns starting quarterback Tyrone Swoopes stepped out onto a football field came in 2019, when he suited up and saw action in five games for the Seattle Seahawks that season, not as a quarterback but at tight end.

After that season, Swoopes managed to bounce around to a few practice squads in 2020 and 2021; however, the former quarterback would never make another official appearance on an NFL football field again.

Now a few years removed from his playing days at the highest level, Swoopes has found himself a new home still around football, no longer as a player but as a coach and an educator at the high school level.

Adjusting to Life After Playing Career

Texas Longhorns Football Tyrone Swoopes — Texas Longhorns quarterback Tyrone Swoopes (18) carries the ball against Texas Christian Horned Frogs defensive end Matt Boesen (9) during the second half at Darrell K Royal-Texas Stadium. | Brendan Maloney-Imagn Images

In a featured article for the Chron, a news website based in Houston, Texas, Swoopes discusses his return to the state of Texas and now being the tight ends coach and teaching 12th-grade economics at Lindale High School, a Class 4A school located in East Texas near Dallas, TX.

In the article, Swoopes talks about how many of his players and students did not know that their coach or teacher played football at the highest level possible.

“As the year goes on with social media and everything, and people start looking me up and they go, 'We saw your highlights. We saw this. We saw you on TikTok,'” Swoopes said. “As the season went on and I started building relationships and talking to kids … they kind of realized who I was.”

In Swoopes' first season with Lindale as its tight ends coach, the team made it to the second round of the Texas high school playoffs.

Swoopes' Time in Austin

The Whitewright, TX native was a four-star prospect, and Rivals ranked him as the No. 13 athlete and No. 30 player from the Lone Star State in the 2013 recruiting class.

While the six-foot-four, 240-plus-pound quarterback certainly had the size and intangibles of a great quarterback, his time at Texas was likely not what he expected or wished it to be. Swoopes finished his time in Austin with 3,038 passing yards, 17 touchdowns, and 13 interceptions, and on the ground, the quarterback added 966 yards and 24 touchdowns.

The quarterback's time on the Forty Acres was a tumultuous time for the Burnt Orange, as long-time legendary head coach Mack Brown resigned after Swoopes' freshman season, where the Longhorns went 8-5. And after Brown was replaced by Charlie Strong, things didn't get much better as Texas went 16-21 in Swoopes' final three years.

The quarterback's best statistical season came in his second year with the Longhorns, where Swoopes passed for 2,409 yards, 13 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions while adding four scores through the air.

Many Longhorns fans who endured those tough times in Austin might remember one bright spot that came in Swoopes' senior season, where he was not the starting quarterback, but Swoopes came in and scored the game-winning touchdown in overtime to upset No. 10 Notre Dame with a play from the infamous "18-Wheeler package" to walk off the Fighting Irish.

Tyrone "The 18-Wheeler" Swoopes bulldozes his way into the endzone with a MASSIVE 3-yard TD in the first overtime!

Notre Dame Fighting Irish vs. Texas Longhorns
Texas clinches the victory with a heart-stopping 50-47 score!
Sept. 4, 2016 pic.twitter.com/9IFNdnygiI
— Longhorn🤘Highlights (@LonghornClips) December 20, 2024