Off week buys time for Ehlinger
Herman looks to steadily increase QB’s throws in practice as he recovers from shoulder injury
AUSTIN — Tom Herman still spent last Saturday wrapped up in football, though the stakes were lower than he was accustomed to.
Instead of beefed-up teenagers and early twenty-somethings battering one another inside boisterous stadiums, this atypical afternoon featured prepubescents with flag-adorned belts wrapped around their waists. No crushing hits, no real pressure, no need to stress.
For Herman and sixth-ranked Texas (6-1, 4-0 Big 12), the bye week offered a rare period of tranquility and rest before the mad dash toward a Big 12 championship begins.
“Really good, very timely open week,” Herman said Monday. “Our guys had a chance to take a deep breath on Friday and Saturday. There was no practice. Our coaches had an opportunity to go out and recruit a little bit.
“And I know for me on Saturday I had an opportunity to spend with our family watching some i9 flag football.”
The Longhorns reconvened Sunday for an hourlong practice in helmets and shorts. Their next adventure is a trip to Stillwater, Okla., for a meeting with an ailing Oklahoma State (4-3, 1-3) team.
Sam Ehlinger got in 10 throws with a lightweight Nerf ball and 15 with a regulation football, and Herman said the sophomore quarterback remains “on schedule” in his recovery from a firstdegree shoulder sprain suffered in an Oct. 13 win over Baylor.
The plan is to ratchet up Ehlinger’s workload each day. Should no setbacks occur, he’ll progress from 25 throws during Tuesday’s padded practice up to 50 by Thursday, about 25 fewer than what his typical routine calls for.
Junior quarterback Shane Buechele, who relieved Ehlinger and threw for 184 yards and one touchdown in UT’s 23-17 win over the Bears, will take the remainder of first-team snaps once Ehlinger hits his limit.
“If he’s healthy and he’s himself, then certainly he’ll start,” Herman said of Ehlinger. “We talked awhile yesterday about him being very honest with us in terms of his pain because there’s an element to his game that’s different than a lot of quarterbacks, and if we’re out there playing cautious and tentative and trying to protect things, I think that plays into the overall effectiveness of him and his game for us.”
Even if Buechele is called upon to make his first start since the 2017 Texas Bowl, the game plan won’t undergo a dramatic overhaul.
Buechele can’t carry piles or bulldoze through human walls like Ehlinger, and he likely won’t be used as a pseudo power back near the goal line, but Herman believes a Buechele-driven offense would require only a few minor tweaks rather than a complete recalibration.
“I think our offense, it’s very easy to plug and play,” Herman said. “It’s not like we call or we carry in a game plan only these plays when Sam’s our quarterback and only these plays when Shane’s our quarterback.
“As far as our offense goes, all four of those guys in that (quarterback) room, there’s not enough of a gap in their different skill sets to merit different game plans. It’s just what are you going to maybe use a little bit more if one guy’s in versus another.”
Aside from added time for Ehlinger to heal, the bye week provided Texas the opportunity to get introspective.
An extended internal diagnosis found two key issues worth addressing.
“I think probably the biggest thing for me, offensively, we’re going to the right people with our offensive line, we’re not getting a whole lot of movement at times,” Herman said. “And I want to see us get a little bit more movement.
“And then I think defensively we’re still not quite up to our standard on third down. I think we have got to do a better job, especially the third-and-mediumto-long deals where that’s been a cinch to get us off the field normally. We have been not quite as good in that down and distance.”
It’s now a sprint to the finish for Texas.
With five regular-season Saturdays remaining, plus a potential appearance in the Dec. 1 Big 12 championship, the pressure will continue to mount.
“The only thing we talk about is that we have earned everybody’s best shot,” Herman said, “so if we think we’re going to get anything less than everybody’s best shot from here on out, we’re kidding ourselves.”