Garrett Gilbert hasn't been heard from much since leaving Texas after two games last season, but the Dallas Morning News profiled the former Longhorn and current SMU Mustang this week.
Within the profile, Gilbert's dad had some frank comments about Gilbert's situation in 2010.
“It was a bad team anyway,” Gale [Gilbert] said. “You could have put John Elway in at quarterback and it wasn’t going to be pretty. I’m proud of the way Garrett handled himself. He showed great perseverance putting up with what he had to deal with here in Austin.”
Gilbert took 27 credit hours so he could graduate from UT in May with a degree in sports management and have two years of eligibility remaining at SMU. Under NCAA rules, a player who transfers from one Division I-A school to another must sit out one year unless he graduated from the previous program.
“It was definitely a learning process down there, facing that adversity, but you have to go through that kind of stuff,” Garrett said. “Now that I’m here, I don’t look back on it negatively; I look back on it and say, ‘What can I learn from it?”’
Surprising to see that frank of a comment, even if there's plenty of truth to it. Texas had a good defense in 2010, leading the Big 12 in total defense.
Offensively, yes, Gilbert didn't have much help, but he's still the guy I remember throwing five picks in an embarrassing loss to Kansas State. He also had a Big 12-high 17 interceptions on the season to just 10 touchdowns while starting all 12 games of the disastrous 5-7 season.
And I choose to disagree with Gilbert's father's hyperbole about John Elway, unless he's talking about Elway today at age 52, in which case, he may be correct.
I was glad to see Gilbert land at SMU, a place where I do think he can succeed under June Jones. That said, I think his father did him a disservice by taking a shot at his former team, even if he was somewhat correct.
Just unnecessary.