After being benched during his sophomore season with the Houston Cougars, quarterback John O’Korn decided to transfer after the season.
This could develop into one of those rare cases where a player is benched at a smaller school yet transfers to a higher profile program.Am told that John O’Korn is considering #Texas & #UF among his transfer options. He threw 34 TDs, 18 INTs in 2 yrs at #Houston.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) January 9, 2015
O’Korn entered the 2014 campaign as one of the most promising young quarterbacks in the country.
As a true freshman, O’Korn completed 58.1 percent of his passes with 28 touchdowns and only 10 interceptions.
The native of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, regressed during his second season. O’Korn threw only six touchdowns compared to eight interceptions this past fall.
Despite the poor season, O’Korn will be hot commodity among teams searching for a pro style quarterback. Greg Ward Jr. was a better option for the Cougars over the second half of the season due to his ability to run the football, and he will remain so in Tom Herman‘s spread offense. O’Korn, on the other hand, is a pure pocket passer. Thus, it makes sense he’s considering Florida and Texas.
Both programs run systems that best suit O’Korn’s skills. Florida is a particularly interesting option due to it being the quarterback’s home state, and new head coach Jim McElwain recently worked wonders with quarterback Garrett Grayson at Colorado State.
If both schools are interested in O’Korn, it must be due to an assumption that his 2014 performance was merely an aberration and still see his potential.
Houston has yet to grant O’Korn his release, but the school previously granted the quarterback permission to contact other schools about possibly transferring, per SI.com’s Thayer Evans.