The expected top quarterbacks in this year's draft all met with the Houston Texans during the NFL scouting combine last week.

The Texans spent five of their 60 combine formal interview slots on California quarterback Jared Goff, Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch, North Dakota State quarterback Carson Wentz, Michigan State quarterback Connor Cook and Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg.

As always, we have to offer this disclaimer: The Texans are going to meet with a lot of players during this process. On whom they use their 60 combine formal interviews is significant, but only in that these are players about whom they'd like to gather more information.

Carson Wentz and Jared Goff are just two of the players the QB-needy Texans have visited with. USA TODAY Sports

What's more telling is who gets a private workout with the Texans, but even that could be deceptive, as the Texans have been pretty good in the past at hiding their intentions.

One point of interest here is that of Hackenberg. He's been linked to Texans coach Bill O'Brien because of their connection from college. O'Brien recruited Hackenberg to Penn State and they spent only one year together, Hackenberg's freshman year, which was his best statistical season.

Hackenberg already sounded like a Bill O'Brien quarterback during his press conference. He was asked three times about O'Brien, specifically, and each time deflected to try and talk about other things. He also trotted out a variation of O'Brien's favorite sentence by saying he was just trying to be the best prospect he could be.

Despite O'Brien's familiarity with Hackenberg, Texans general manager Rick Smith insists that won't change his own process for evaluating him.

"I don't know him," Smith said. "I have to spend as much time on him as I need to learn and identify or try to figure out what I think about him. It’s just like everyone else."