Texas Football: 3 reasons Sam Ehlinger will be Big 12’s best player in 2020

3. Keeps progressing as a passer

Even if the overall efficiency of Ehlinger’s stat line fell from his sophomore to his junior campaign, his passing stats got much better over the course of each of his three seasons at Texas. He started out his freshman campaign with a passer efficiency rating of 124.1, which progressed to 146.8 as a sophomore, and moved all the way up to 151.8 last season.

Pro Football Focus graded out Ehlinger’s first three seasons with the Longhorns, and his 2019 campaign came out on top by a good margin. It really showed how much he improved from the 2017 to the 2018 season. His well-noted sophomore breakthrough season earned him above an 85 grade.

But he was one of the few quarterbacks in the entire country that was able to crack the 90 mark in terms of grades.

Moreover, the passer efficiency rating was not the only area of Ehlinger’s passing stats that took a major step forward over the last three years. His completion percentage went from 57.5 as a freshman, to 64.7 as a sophomore, to eclipsing 65 percent as a junior. He ranked third in the Big 12 in completion percentage last season. And he’s 18th all-time in Big 12 recorded history in completion percentage.

Ehlinger also ranks in the top three in the last two seasons combined in total interceptions.

Another good metric for evaluating Ehlinger as a passer is his continually improving adjusted yards per passing attempt. He registered more than eight adjusted yards per passing attempt in each of the last two seasons.