Tennessee quarterback Quinten Dormady announced back in mid-January of this year that he intended to transfer off Tennessee’s roster and pursue a football career elsewhere for his final year of college. And now he’s announced where that last year of college football will be played.
Dormady announced on Instagram on Tuesday evening that he will be transferring to the University of Houston for the 2018 season. Dormady graduated early while at Tennessee, so he is a graduate transfer and will be eligible to play immediately for the Cougars this upcoming season.
Houston went 7-5 last season in Major Applewhite’s first full season as head coach, and they struggled with quarterback play all season. On the year, Houston’s three quarterbacks combined to complete 68.4 percent of their 411 pass attempts for 3,136 yards, but they only threw 16 touchdowns compared to 12 interceptions.
Dormady came in to Tennessee as part of the Vols’ heralded 2015 recruiting class and was ranked as a four-star by most recruiting services. The 247Sports Composite rankings had Dormady as the No. 278 overall player and No. 11 pro-style quarterback in the class.
There were high hopes for Dormady at Tennessee, and he flashed some of that potential in mop up duties in a handful of games in both his freshman and sophomore seasons.
But when it came time to start, Dormady fell short of those expectations.
Injuries, poor offensive line play, and a mediocre offensive system held Dormady back in 2017, his first chance to show what he could do as Tennessee’s starting quarterback. In five starts at quarterback for the Vols this past season, Dormady completed just 55.5 percent of his passes for 925 yards, six touchdowns, and six interceptions. He would be benched in favor of redshirt freshman Jarrett Guarantano before the Vols’ game against South Carolina, and it was announced shortly after that game that Dormady would miss the rest of the season to have surgery to repair his shoulder.
Dormady’s departure left Tennessee with just two scholarship quarterbacks on the roster this spring. Rising redshirt sophomore Jarrett Guarantano and rising sophomore Will McBride have been the only scholarship signal callers on Tennessee’s roster this spring. Stanford grad transfer Keller Chryst and true freshman J.T. Shrout will join the roster this fall.
For Dormady, his transfer to Houston marks a return home. Dormady played for Boerne High School in Boerne, Texas before coming to Tennessee. Houston is about three and a half hours away from Dormady’s hometown, putting him much closer to home than he was in Knoxville.
