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The 2005 recruiting season was an up and down one for the Texas Longhorns full of hits and big misses. Nothing had a bigger impact on the future of Texas football than the roller coaster ride that was Ryan Perrilloux. Perrilloux eventually decommitted (after months of lies) leaving the Horns with only a unheralded 3-star QB named . Guess that turned out alright after all.

Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated takes an interesting look back at the 2005 quarterback class and finds a lot of busts and only a few stars, of course including our own McCoy. Bill Walsh and have a hypothesis on why QB recruiting is full of so many misses, too much focus on arm strength:

Texas offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Greg Davis says most talent evaluators put too much emphasis on a quarterback’s arm strength. Several years ago, while coaching in the East-West Shrine Game in San Francisco, Davis got to sit with 49ers legend Bill Walsh at a dinner. He asked Walsh the most important qualities he had identified in the many successful QBs he drafted.

“He didn’t hesitate,” said Davis. “No. 1, he said: ‘Accuracy.’ Then he talked about athletic ability, intelligence. Way, way down on the list was arm strength.”

Davis knows well the importance of digging beyond the recruiting rankings. During his and head coach Mack Brown’s 11-year tenure in Austin, the Longhorns have signed two QBs who were No. 1 in their class — (1999) and (2002) — and originally received a commitment from Perrilloux.

However, they found their current star quarterback — three-year starter and 2008 Heisman runner-up Colt McCoy — tucked away at a small school in rural Tuscola, Texas. In the ’05 class, McCoy — then listed at 6-foot-1, 180 pounds — was ranked just 15th among pro-style QBs, behind Pittsburgh’s Bill Stull, Notre Dame’s Evan Sharpley and Wisconsin’s Dustin Sherer, among others.

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