Could Florida transfer Tyler Murphy help Texas at quarterback?

Adding a graduate transfer quarterback may be the best bet for the Texas Longhorns to add depth to a thin position entering the 2014 season and Florida Gators transfer Tyler Murphy is now on the market.

The future of David Ash is still up in the air after his concussion problems sidelined him since the first half of the Kansas State game on September 21 and though he is expected to return for spring practice, there are no guarantees that he can survive another football season without experiencing further recurrence of his symptoms or another concussion.

Then there's current freshman Tyrone Swoopes, who had his redshirt burned, but received little playing time and probably needs another year to develop, incoming freshman Jerrod Heard, assuming he sticks with his pledge, and redshirt freshman Jalen Overstreet, who has bounced back and forth between running back and quarterback this season.

Overall, there's just not enough quality depth to feel safe about the position's short-term future, so Murphy may be the perfect answer as a one-year insurance policy.

One of a multitude of Gators leaving the sinking ship in Gainesville, Murphy is a former two-star prospect from the 2010 class out of Connecticut. The dual-threat passer also had offers from Fordham, Syracuse, and Temple -- he's not exactly a former blue-chip recruit, but that doesn't really matter at this point for Texas' purposes, as the team merely needs a competent quarterback with experience.

Unfortunately, Murphy doesn't have a lot of experience, as he didn't record his first playing time as a quarterback at Florida until this season after playing one game at wide receiver in 2012, in which he failed to record a catch.

This season, Murphy finally got his opportunity when starter Jeff Driskel went down with a broken leg against Tennessee in the season's third game.

The starter for six games until he went down with his own shoulder injury, Murphy put up mildly respectable numbers -- a 60.5% completion percentage, 6.57 yards per attempt, a 2.7% interception rate boosted tremendously by three interceptions against Vanderbilt in his final Gator appearance, and at least four runs of 15 or more yards (he ran 10 times for 84 yards in his debut).

All that, of course, attempting to operate a Florida offense that is best described as completely terrible.

The adjusted QBR for Murphy of 48.4 is decidedly mediocre in a measurement that attempts to remove a lot of the noise present in passer rating, but again, the goal here for Texas is to find a mildly competence insurance option who could step in if Ash can't play and Swoopes and Heard aren't ready.

From the look of things, Tyler Murphy might well fit that bill.