Texas Football: Colts really like Sam Ehlinger’s ‘poise and instincts’

Among the five former Texas football players picked up in the 2021 NFL Draft was the former star senior quarterback Sam Ehlinger. The Indianapolis Colts out of the AFC South picked up Ehlinger with the 218th overall pick in the sixth round of the draft. That was about where most Texas fans likely expected Ehlinger to be drafted following the conclusion of the first two days of the festivities a couple of months ago.

Ehlinger is expected to compete with the likes of the former Georgia Bulldogs and Washington Huskies quarterback Jacob Eason and former Prairie View A&M product Jalen Morton for the backup job. That trio of signal callers will be competing for the backup role with the Colts behind the assumed starting quarterback and former Philadelphia Eagle Carson Wentz.

And in a report from the Colts team website this week, one of the team’s scouts, Anthony Coughlan, dove into why the team liked Ehlinger so much in day three of the draft. Here’s more on what this piece from the Colts website had to say on the matter of their drafting of the former Longhorn star Ehlinger.

What a Colts scout had to say about former Texas football QB Sam Ehlinger?

"He’s got the “it” factor. To me, it’s the physical, mental toughness, the drive to push when it gets hard just to figure it out, problem solve and find a way to gut it out and win. And he’s done that time after time there. And he’s got a really unique story just with growing up with his family, really tough with his father, and became the man of the house at a young age and he really just carried that throughout his life and continued to conduct himself in a professional manner through high school, through college."

He also specifically noted that Ehlinger has the “poise and instincts” that really appealed to the Colts front office to pick him up in the sixth round. Especially if the Colts are looking to use Ehlinger in some hybrid role in the next few years, his “instincts” will be key to help him adapt to a new scheme at the next level.

Ehlinger landed in a good situation considering he could make his way up the quarterback depth chart pretty fast. If he can solidify the backup role behind Wentz at some point in the next two years, he could be on track to hold a steady job in the NFL for multiple years on end.

Texas had a decent draft class in 2021, but new head coach Steve Sarkisian has to be hoping that the player development only continues to improve from here on out. Ehlinger himself was the first Longhorns quarterback actually drafted into the NFL since Colt McCoy in 2010.

During his four years playing for Texas, Ehlinger registered 11,436 career passing yards, 94 passing touchdowns, 27 interceptions, 1,903 rushing yards, and 33 rushing touchdowns. He should get his chance soon to make an impact with the Colts.