Sam Ehlinger will head to the NFL.
Ehlinger posted a video on social media Sunday announcing a decision about his future.
In the video, Ehlinger thanked Texas fans for their support. He said he felt leaving for the NFL was the right move for him.
“Thank you for your support. It has meant everything to me. Although we did not reach our ultimate goal of winning a championship, we have won many great games, and the program is indeed in a much better place,” Ehlinger says in the video.
“In the same way that I knew UT was the right choice for me, I now know it is the right time for me to go on to the NFL.”
Ehlinger was a four-year starter at Texas, and his entire career spanned Tom Herman’s time as the Longhorns’ head coach. He finished behind Colt McCoy in career passing yards and passing touchdowns.
The NCAA’s rules for this fall are different due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This season does not count towards college eligibility, meaning seniors like Ehlinger have the option of playing again next season. Ehlinger could still change his mind, though with a new coach coming in, it might be the right time to leave.
The Texas Longhorns finished their season in a strong way on Tuesday, but questions surround Sam Ehlinger.
The Longhorns senior quarterback was knocked out of the Valero Alama Bowl game against Colorado with a shoulder injury. He went 10/16 for 160 yards and a touchdown before being replaced by Casey Thompson.
Though this was Ehlinger’s senior season, he has the option to return next fall due to eligibility rules changes for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Texas coach Tom Herman talked about Ehlinger after his team’s 55-23 win and praised the quarterback for an “indescribable” influence on the team. Herman also said he didn’t know about Ehlinger’s future.
Ehlinger is second in school history in career passing yards and passing touchdowns behind Colt McCoy. He would be poised to add to those stats if he returned next year.
The Texas Longhorns continue to be a program with decent results but championship aspirations, and that’s led to major frustrations in Austin.
Texas’ loss to Iowa State on Friday dropped them to 5-3 on the season. With two winnable games to go, a 7-3 finish remains possible, but this is a program that expects to contend for the College Football Playoff. That once again won’t be happening in 2020, and it has led to speculation about coach Tom Herman’s job status.
Quarterback Sam Ehlinger is among the most frustrated. When asked if Herman was getting the most out of the players or if coaching is the issue, Ehlinger offered up a very honest response.
“That’s the million dollar question everybody’s trying to figure out the last 10 years,” Ehlinger said, via Brian Davis of the Austin American-Statesman.
Therein lies the problem. Herman was brought in as the guy who would answer that kind of question. The fact that it’s still being asked doesn’t bode well for him.
Herman himself had a different response to questions about his future with the Longhorns.
A referee in Saturday’s Texas-West Virginia game got carried away with his pats on Sam Ehlinger’s rear.
The official was shown helping Ehlinger back up and then giving him several pats on the backside.
Ehlinger passed for 184 yards and two touchdowns. He also rushed 12 times for 39 yards as the Longhorns beat West Virginia 17-13.
Texas is now 5-2 and has won three in a row following their two-game losing streak. And Ehlinger appears to have a referee who is quite fond of him.
Texas disappointed on Saturday with a 33-31 home loss to TCU, and a key fumble hurt the team.
Running back Keaontay Ingram lost a fumble on first-and-goal at the TCU 1-yard line with under three minutes left.
Texas was down 33-29 at the time, so they had an opportunity to take the lead. Instead, they never got the ball back after the fumble and lost by two (TCU took a safety at the end of the game).
Longhorns quarterback Sam Ehlinger threw for 236 yards and four touchdowns, but it wasn’t enough. He displayed some strong leadership afterwards by sharing a comforting message for Ingram.
“I reminded him as much as we love this, it’s just a game. It’s not life or death. Everybody made a ton of mistakes. It’s more on me than it is on him,” Ehlinger said after the game, via the Austin American-Statesman’s Kirk Bohls.
Just because Ehlinger showed that sort of compassion for Ingram doesn’t mean he wasn’t upset.
Ehlinger’s Longhorns are now 2-1 on the season.
TCU coach Gary Patterson continues his Texas dominance and is now 7-2 against the Longhorns since they joined the Big 12 in 2012.
Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger got his Heisman Trophy campaign off to a roaring start on Saturday, but the senior was not all that satisfied with the monster performance.
Ehlinger had 429 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions in the Longhorns’ 59-3 win over UTEP. All of that production came in the first half. The yardage and touchdowns were a career high for him and record for a Texas quarterback in a single half. Despite that, Ehlinger said after the game that he was “disappointed” in the way he played.
If Ehlinger isn’t satisfied with needing just 30 minutes to set career highs, we can only imagine what he expects of himself this season.
Ehlinger has plenty of experience and appears poised to have a huge year. There was some talk about him potentially declaring for the NFL Draft after last year, but he can only boost his stock if he continues to play like he did on Saturday.
Texas had a disappointing 8-5 season last year, and Ehlinger ended up eating his words after making a bold proclamation the year before. He’s clearly holding himself to an incredibly high standard, which is good news for the Longhorns.
Many professional athletes have donated large sums of money to help those who have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, and those at the amateur level have found a way to pitch in as well. Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger is one of the most successful examples of that.
Ehlinger launched a GoFundMe page on March 25 to help raise money for families that have been impacted by COVID-19, and the fundraiser had received more than $100,000 in donations as of Thursday morning. Ehlinger has set his goal at $1 million and says organizations like the Boys & Girls Club of America, the Central Texas Food Bank, Austin Pets Alive will be receiving money.
Ehlinger also noted that the fundraiser has been approved by the NCAA and the Texas Athletics compliance staff. There was some talk that a GoFundMe page created by Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence and his girlfriend had been shut down because it violated NCAA rules, but Lawrence later clarified that the NCAA granted him permission.
We’ve seen some extremely generous donations from athletes over the past several weeks. It’s great to see athletes like Ehlinger who don’t have millions of their own dollars find a way to use their popularity to raise money.
Sam Ehlinger flirted with the possibility of entering the NFL Draft, but he has decided to return to Texas for his senior season.
Ehlinger posted a hype video on Instagram Monday that featured various clips of him from his Longhorns career. The video concludes with a message that says “one more year” and “chapter 4.”
Ehlinger has some unfinished business at Texas. After a resurgent sophomore season in which the Longhorns went 10-4 and upset Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, Ehlinger declared Texas was “back.” Instead, they disappointed with an 8-5 record this season. Now the Longhorns quarterback will get one more chance to deliver Texas the kind of season he envisioned when he joined the program.
Sam Ehlinger learned a hard lesson about making proclamations and decided not to repeat history this year.
For the second straight year, Ehlinger’s Texas Longhorns pulled off an upset in their bowl game with a big win over a higher-ranked team that was disappointed about losing its conference championship game. Last time around, Ehlinger declared after Texas’ win over Georgia that “Texas is back!”
This year, Texas was 7-5 entering their bowl game and still beat Utah 38-10 in the Alamo Bowl. But after the convincing win, Ehlinger decided not to make another big comment.
That’s smart.
Texas finished 10-4 last season and entered this season with big expectations. They fell well short of them and it nearly cost Tom Herman his job. Instead, Herman was given the chance to overhaul his staff ahead of a make-or-break 2020. There is no guarantee Ehlinger will be around either, as he is considering entering the NFL Draft.
Expectations are high at Texas, and the Longhorns’ 2019 season is almost certainly going to be viewed as a major step back after a 10-win season in 2018. Quarterback Sam Ehlinger, however, is trying to put Texas’ 7-5 campaign in perspective.
Ehlinger said after the Longhorns’ 49-24 win over Texas Tech that he believes Texas fans would have been very happy with a potential eight-win season if you asked them after the team went 5-7 in 2016.
This probably isn’t going to cut it as an explanation. Expectations were high after the team won 10 games in 2018, and Big 12 contention was the minimum expectation. The school’s athletic director openly said as much. Those expectations were not met, as the team lost to the likes of TCU and Iowa State, neither of which was ranked at the time of the game. Ehlinger is trying to make things look good here, but Longhorns fans expect better than 7-5, especially after the way 2018 went.
