Texas Football: Athlon magazine ranks Sam Ehlinger in top 10 for 2020

Athlon’s national preview magazine for the 2020 season showed that rising senior Texas football quarterback Sam Ehlinger has a lot of hype this year.

Ahead of the looming 2020 college football season, the Texas football program has building expectations that will be hard to ignore. To-be fourth-year head coach Tom Herman and rising senior star quarterback Sam Ehlinger will have a lot of the pressure on their shoulders to push the Longhorns to new heights come this fall.

Ehlinger is coming off a solid junior campaign where he registered more than 4,000 total yards, 39 total touchdowns, and just 10 interceptions. He helped the Longhorns finish up with a record that was well below preseason expectations. But he did the most he could in quite a few of the games where the Longhorns fell short.

Texas finished up with a record of 8-5 (5-4 Big 12) to round out the 2019 season.

The expectations are going to be much higher for the Longhorns this coming season. And various media outlets are already including Ehlinger and the Longhorns among their preseason lists and rankings.

Athlon Sports reportedly listed Ehlinger among their top 10 players in the entire country, in their national magazine previewing the 2020 college football season. Ehlinger was the only Longhorn that not only made the top 10 in Athlon magazine, but the top 20. A piece from 247Sports gave the breakdown on the placement of Ehlinger in the top 20.

"Whether or not Texas ultimate is “back” remains to be seen, but where Sam Ehlinger stands as a top college football quarterback seems proven enough at this point. As a junior with the Longhorns on the 2019 season, in which the team went 8-5 overall and 5-4 against Big 12 play, Ehlinger completed 296 of 454 passes (63.2 percent) for 3,663 yards and 32 touchdowns to 10 interceptions through 13 games. The 6-foot-3, 230-pounder added 163 carries for 663 yards (4.1 average) and seven touchdowns. Ehlinger built upon his sophomore campaign in 2018, when he completed 275 of 425 passes (64.7 percent) for 3,292 yards and 25 touchdowns to five interceptions through 14 games. Ehlinger added 164 carries for 482 yards (2.9 average) and 16 touchdowns as Texas went 10-4 on the season and 7-2 in Big 12 play."

Other highlighting players that made the top 10 in Athlon’s national magazine included North Carolina rising sophomore quarterback Sam Howell (No. 9), Oklahoma State junior running back Chuba Hubbard (No. 8), LSU rising junior wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase (No. 5), and Clemson rising junior quarterback Trevor Lawrence (No. 1).

Former Texas commit and third-year Purdue wide receiver Rondale Moore made No. 11 on the list. And the only other quarterback to make it that isn’t already mentioned here is Ohio State’s third-year star Justin Fields (No. 2).

It will be interesting to see how former Texas head coach Mack Brown develops Howell heading into his second year in Chapel Hill. He posted a passer efficiency rating above 160, which was nearly 10 points better than Ehlinger (151.7) from last season.

Ehlinger is commonly considered the best quarterback in the Big 12 returning for the 2020 offseason. He’ll be looking to get the Longhorns the first Big 12 Championship of his career, to finally unseat head coach Lincoln Riley and the Oklahoma Sooners.