Casey Thompson named Florida Atlantic starting quarterback
After making his third collegiate stop, former Nebraska and Texas quarterback Casey Thompson was officially named the starter for Florida Atlantic ahead of the 2023 season according to college football insider Pete Thamel.
Thompson is entering his final collegiate season as a graduate student, spending four seasons with the Longhorns and one lone season last year with the Cornhuskers before joining FAU, starting in ten games for each program.
He was a four-star prospect out of Newcastle high school in Oklahoma in the 2018 class, where On3’s Industry Ranking tabbed him as the No. 308 overall player and the No. 24 quarterback in that class.
Texas was Thompson’s school of choice out of high school, where he was red-shirted and got very little playing time in his first three seasons before bursting onto the scene in 2021. He appeared in all 12 games and made 10 starts for the Longhorns that year, leading the Big 12 with 24 touchdown passes while also adding 2,113 yards in the air and four rushing touchdowns to his stat line.
He entered the transfer portal the following season, deciding to take his talents to Lincoln to play for the Nebraska Cornhuskers for the 2022 season. In a season riddled with injury for Thompson and highlighted by the firing of head coach Scott Frost, he still managed to throw for 2,407 yards and reach the end zone 22 times between the air and ground in his 10 starts for the Cornhuskers.
But following the 2022 season he looked for another change in scenery, entering the transfer portal in April. Thompson chose Florida Atlantic as his destination, reuniting with former Texas head coach Tom Herman who he played under for three seasons in Austin. Thompson beat out Central Michigan transfer Daniel Richardson and Tyriq Starks for the Owl’s starting job.
“I think a healthy Casey Thompson is better than anything that FAU has had here for quite some time, and I don’t think there’s any debate there for a guy that started pretty much an entire season at the University of Texas, an entire season at the University of Nebraska,” Herman said prior to naming Thomson the starter on the ‘ESPN College GameDay’ podcast. “I think it says a lot for the kind of relationships that we build and we pride ourselves on that a young man that we started recruiting eight years ago would feel comfortable enough to come join our program for the last year of college football.”