Tyrone Swoopes

Alphonso Tyrone Swoopes Jr. (born November 14, 1994) is an American former professional football player who was a tight end for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football as a quarterback for the Texas Longhorns and signed with the Seahawks as an undrafted free agent in 2017. He was also a member of the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Football Team.

Swoopes was a highly recruited high school football player from a small town (Whitewright, TX). He played in the 2013 U.S. Army All-American Bowl, and consistently was rated among the top 10 quarterback recruits in the country. In addition to football, he played guard in basketball, in baseball, and competed in the long jump, triple jump, 4 × 400 m, 4 × 200 m, 4 × 100 m and shot put in track and field. A 4-star recruit, he committed to play college football at the University of Texas over offers from Alabama, Auburn, Baylor, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Stanford, TCU, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and UCLA.

In his lone season with head coach Mack Brown, Swoopes saw limited play in the 2013 season, coming in mostly for relief in six games.

On November 2, Swoopes completed his first career collegiate pass against Kansas. On November 28, he had his first career rushing touchdown, which came in the fourth quarter against Texas Tech. On December 30, Swoopes saw time in the 2013 Alamo Bowl against Oregon. In the bowl game, Swoopes had eight rushes for 38 yards.

Swoopes entered the 2014 season with a new head coach, Charlie Strong.

In the first game of the 2014 season, Swoopes entered the game only for the last series, but after a career-ending injury to David Ash, Swoopes was thrown into the unexpected role of starter for the second game against BYU. He remained the starter for the rest of the season.

Swoopes described the season as one of "ups and downs." Despite solid play by Swoopes, his debut game against BYU represented the worst home loss, 41–7, for Texas since 1997. Swoopes had another solid performance the following week against #12 UCLA, but despite a late lead, the Longhorns again came up short. Swoopes led Texas to a win over unranked Kansas, then a loss to #7 Baylor before throwing for a career-high 334 yards in a close loss to Oklahoma. That was followed by a gutsy win over Iowa State in which Swoopes, who set a career-high for total offense, led the Longhorns on a game-winning drive with only 28 seconds left, after having led them on a touchdown drive only a minute earlier. The next game brought a shutout loss to #11 Kansas State. Then the team won three straight over Texas Tech, #24 West Virginia, and Oklahoma State. The highlight of the season was arguably the upset win of then #24 West Virginia, which was not a great game for Swoopes, but was a necessary one for Texas to become bowl-eligible. The next week, against Oklahoma State, Swoopes had the best game of his career, with 305 yards, two touchdowns, and a career-high quarterback rating of 170.4. In the last game of the regular season, Texas was beaten badly by #5 TCU in a game in which Swoopes threw a career-high four interceptions.

Swoopes and the Longhorns went to the Texas Bowl where they met an old Southwest Conference rival Arkansas, but the offense, which struggled all season due to injury and disciplinary losses to the offensive line, was able to muster only 59 yards of offense. It was Swoopes's worst game. He produced only 25 yards of total offense (57 yards of passing and −32 yards of rushing) and registered a career low quarterback rating of 63.2. His performance during the last two games of the season and his 5–7 record as a starter left analysts questioning his role in 2015. Before the bowl game, Max Olson of ESPN wrote of him "he will have to fight for his job next year."