Where Colt McCoy, Vince Young Rank Among Top QBs Since 2000

Where do the two Texas Longhorns legends rank among ESPN's top college football quarterback of the 2000's?

Texas quarterback Vince Young outruns the Southern California defense for the game-winning touchdown in the 2006 Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. | Robert Hanashiro / USA TODAY NETWORK

The Texas Longhorns are one of the best football programs in sports history. Fans can't talk about the early 2000s without mentioning their success, especially with quarterbacks Vince Young and Colt McCoy at the helm.

Both are Longhorn Legends, and while Young is the only one of the two to win a National Championship, McCoy was just as integral to their sustained success during the early turn of the century.

So where do both players, who were among the best at their positions during their years, rank among the top quarterbacks of the 2000s, according to Bill Connelly of ESPN?

Two Of The Best To Do It

Texas Longhorns quarterback Colt McCoy (12) heads out to the field before the 2010 BCS national championship game against the Alabama Crimson Tide at the Rose Bowl. | Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

For the sport of college football, it is impossible to talk about the best games in the sport's history without mentioning the 2006 Rose Bowl between the Longhorns and the USC Trojans. In what became the "Vince Young, corner of the endzone call," it was an electric cap-off for Young, who would go on to be the number three overall pick in the draft.

It was his collegiate accolades that earned him those stats, becoming the first player in NCAA history to pass for 3,000 yards and rush for 1,000 yards in the same season. He would finish his career with 6,040 passing yards, a 62 percent completion rate, 44 passing touchdowns, 3,127 rushing yards, and 37 rushing touchdowns during his career at the Forty Acres from 2003 to 2005.

That earned Young the No. 3 three spot on the list, falling just behind Cam Newton with the Auburn Tigers and Baker Mayfield from the Oklahoma Sooners, who took the number one spot on the list from ESPN.

McCoy was the only other Longhorn to make the list, coming in as the No. 12 quarterback from the 2000s and known for his steady presence under center, guiding the Longhorns back to a National Championship after Young departed for the NFL. Despite not winning a BCS Championship himself, McCoy was a steady quarterback for the Longhorns before being taken in the third round of the NFL Draft.

McCoy would finish his career with 13,523 yards passing, a 70 percent completion rate, 112 passing touchdowns, 45 interceptions, 15,71 rushing yards, and 20 touchdowns on the ground. Far more significant stats than Young, who is third on the list, but had 45 career wins, and as Connelly says in the article, "one giant what-if", had he not gotten hurt against the Alabama Crimson Tide.

For the Longhorns, two of their most well-regarded quarterbacks got the flowers they deserve for the influential role they played shaping the landscape of college football in the 2000s.