Sam Ehlinger will start at quarterback when UT opens the season Sept. 1.
Swashbuckling soph says he has learned from early mistakes
AUSTIN — The pleas probably will go unheeded.
Coach Tom Herman has tried. Offensive coordinator Tim Beck has tried. Jena Ehlinger has tried hardest of all.
Sam Ehlinger isn’t oblivious to the chorus of concerned voices. He appreciates how coaches, friends and family members fear for his safety every time he bulls into a defender headfirst or with his shoulder. Ehlinger also can’t fully extract a fundamental part of his football identity, even with his mother Jena wincing at every blow.
“You tell them that, certainly,” Herman said. “But I think there’s something in those kinds of guys — the Tim Tebows, the Cam Newtons. J.T. Barrett was the same way, just a physical runner. You try to educate them, but I think when it’s in your DNA, so to speak, it’s very hard.”
Football is a dangerous game to play, but that aspect of Ehlinger’s personality also is what makes the sophomore such an intriguing quarterback prospect. It is part of the reason Herman appointed Ehlinger to be the Longhorns’ starter over junior Shane Buechele.
Barring a “catastrophe,” Ehlinger will lead the Texas offense onto the field for its Sept. 1 season opener against Maryland at FedEx Field in Landover, Md. Buechele, who started UT’s two previous openers, will be ready should injury or ineffectiveness strike.
“He’s throwing the ball a lot better,” Herman said of Ehlinger after Monday’s practice. “He’s sitting in the pocket much more comfortably. And let’s make no mistake: Shane Buechele had a great camp. Didn’t do really anything wrong.
“Neither of them did anything to justify saying, ‘You can’t win with that guy.’ So it was just a matter of who do we feel gives you the best chance to win in the first game, and we’ll see if we’re right.”
Buechele’s swift recovery from January hip surgery and overall improvement on the field infused some drama into the duel, but the job became Ehlinger’s to lose immediately after he facilitated a Texas Bowl victory over Missouri.
At times last season, Ehlinger soared as high as a true freshman quarterback could.
He threw for 380 yards and ran for 107 in a double-overtime victory over Kansas State. Ehlinger punctuated the win by plowing through Wildcats cornerback Denzel Goolsby on a 9-yard run that set up Chris Warren’s gamewinning touchdown.
In his first road start against Southern Cal, Ehlinger nearly outplayed future No. 3 overall pick Sam Darnold. He capped a 14play, 91-yard scoring drive by hitting Armanti Foreman in the end zone for a go-ahead touchdown with 45 seconds remaining in regulation.
But Ehlinger’s lows landed like daggers in the chest.
His fumble on the first possession of double overtime allowed the Trojans to play it safe and settle for a game-ending 43-yard field goal. Costly turnovers and questionable decisions served as inflection points in losses to Oklahoma State and Texas Tech.
Ehlinger devoted untold hours to studying each agonizing moment.
“I think everything happens for a reason, and I think that there’s great things in store for this program,” Ehlinger said. “Without those things, I wouldn’t have learned the amount that I did, although it would have been great for them to go the other way and to beat USC on the road for my first away game. But I learned a lot of things from that, and I think that’s going to carry over into my future.”
It has been an offseason of rigorous education in decision-making and ball control. Herman and Beck expect and demand genuine improvement in those areas. But the gunslinger mentality remains etched into Ehlinger’s soul, and his coaches aren’t keen to change that.
Mixed into Ehlinger’s film sessions were clips featuring Drew Brees, Derek Carr and Brett Favre. The longtime Green Bay Packers great makes for an obvious role model considering his significance as a totem for daring young quarterbacks; Brees and Carr serve as a helpful counterbalance.
Ehlinger probably won’t ease up on the throttle. There will be more crunching collisions and more cringing from his mother and everyone else, pleading for him to slide or escape out of bounds. But as long as Ehlinger avoids the pitfalls of the past, Texas believes it has found the right man for the job.
“I haven’t earned anything yet,” Ehlinger said. “It starts with Maryland, and it’s one day at a time.
“But I think if we keep chopping away at it, we’re going to be where we want to be a lot sooner than we think.”