Texas Football Rewind: Sam Ehlinger’s unfortunate statistical outlier

After a brief pause in the series, our next rewind for the Texas football program shows a rather unlucky stat for to-be senior quarterback Sam Ehlinger.

As likely the best quarterback to play for the Texas football program within the last decade, to-be senior star Sam Ehlinger is set to have a big final year on the Forty Acres. Texas hasn’t really had a true star quarterback behind center since Colt McCoy more than a decade ago. They were truly spoiled by having Vince Young and McCoy as the back-to-back starting quarterbacks.

To cap the 2005 season, VY would lead Texas to that infamous instant classic BCS National Championship Game in the Rose Bowl over the USC Trojans. And just four seasons later, Texas would make it back to the national title game under McCoy’s direction. Granted a McCoy injury would lose it big time for Texas at the hands of the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Ehlinger is the best chance for Texas to make it back to the national title game, or at least the modern equivalent with the College Football Playoff, since McCoy’s time was done in Austin.

But there is an unfortunate statistical trend that is hard to match up for Ehlinger during his time with the Texas Longhorns football program, compared with the rest of the starting quarterbacks in the last two decades in Austin.

It seems like the dual-threat ability that Ehlinger brings to the table isn’t being fully maximized by fourth-year head coach Tom Herman as much as it could be. There are numbers to back up that fact too.

There’s a number of games where Ehlinger lit up the stat sheet with rushing and passing touchdowns. In total, he’s racked up 57 passing touchdowns and 23 rushing touchdowns just over the course of the last two seasons. Very few returning college quarterbacks this year are able to claim those solid stats.

In his career with Texas so far, Ehlinger has amassed at least one rushing and one passing touchdown in 14 different games. VY didn’t have that many games with that number of rushing and passing touchdowns with Texas, and McCoy had the same amount.

And that number of games that Ehlinger had with at least one rushing and one passing touchdown is tied for the sixth most of any in the Big 12 since 2000. Big 12 quarterbacks that ranked ahead of him include the former Heisman Trophy winner and former Baylor Bear Robert Griffin III, TCU Horned Frogs stud Trevone Boykin, and former Kansas State Wildcats Heisman contender Collin Klein. Former Oklahoma Sooner Baker Mayfield and Baylor Bear Bryce Petty also had 15 games of at least one rushing and one passing touchdown in their career.

There is only one Big 12 starting quarterback since the turn of the century that had a winning percentage that was as bad as Ehlinger’s. And that quarterback is currently a huge name in the NFL. Former Texas Tech Red Raiders star signal caller Patrick Mahomes held a record of 7-8 when he had at least one rushing and one passing touchdown in a single game.

The record that Ehlinger holds when he rushes for at least one and passes for another touchdown in a single game is 9-5. That also puts him in the ballpark with quarterbacks like former West Virginia Mountaineer Skylar Howard, Iowa State Cyclone Austen Arnaud, and Kansas Jayhawk Todd Reesing in terms of overall record with these constraints.

Take into account that record from Ehlinger encompasses a the nailbiting loss from the 2017 Red River Rivalry game against Oklahoma and a weird loss to the Oklahoma State Cowboys in 2018, and the 9-5 mark makes a bit more sense. But McCoy still held a record of 14-0 when rushing for one and passing for at least another touchdown in a game. VY’s record within this framework was 13-0.

Part of the discrepency in record between Ehlinger alongside VY and McCoy is just surrounding talent. Herman’s Longhorns aren’t up to par with those elite teams led by former Texas head coach Mack Brown throughout the 2000’s.

Just look at the defensive comparisons between the 2005 and 2009 Longhorns teams compared with 2018 and 2019 solely in terms of points allowed per game. Texas ranked 12th in the nation in points allowed per game in 2009, and ninth in 2005.

Fast forward to 2018, and the Longhorns are allowing 25.9 points per game (ranking 57th in the nation), and you arrive at the conclusion that the defense just wasn’t as good. Texas also allowed 27.5 points per game last year (ranking 65th in the nation).

Some of the names in the supporting cast that VY and McCoy had compared to Ehlinger just isn’t fair. The running backs that VY and McCoy had at their disposal in the 2000’s included Jamaal Charles, Selvin Young, Chris Ogbonnaya, and Fozzy Whitaker. Meanwhile, Ehlinger has dealt with Keaontay Ingram, Roschon Johnson, Chris Warren III, and Kyle Porter.

Granted Roschon and Keaontay showed a lot of potential together last season. There is still a big discrepancy in star power at the running back position.

Moreover, what we can’t forget is that both VY and McCoy made it to the national title game in their final seasons with Texas. While Ehlinger hasn’t made it to the College Football Playoff yet in his three-year Texas career, he is just now embarking on his final season on the Forty Acres in 2020.