Texas Football: Breaking down Longhorns’ spring 2018 starting QB battle

The annual spring game is approaching and the Texas Longhorns still don’t have a solidified starting quarterback. Who will step up?

As the Texas Longhorns’ Orange-White Spring Game draws nearer, one of the biggest questions fans have is who Tom Herman is going to name as his starting quarterback?

Herman has not given much indication of who he is favoring and the starter most likely will not be named until after fall camp, but here is a breakdown of the Longhorns’ four scholarship signal-callers.

Shane Buechele, Junior (6-foot-1, 205 pounds)

After starting every game during his freshman season and becoming the first quarterback since Longhorn legend Colt McCoy to reach 2,500 passing yards and 20 touchdowns, Buechele’s sophomore season took a dive after he suffered a shoulder injury in the opener against Maryland and could not stay 100 percent healthy the remainder of the season.

Since then he has been battling for the starting position with sophomore Sam Ehlinger which is continuing in spring camp.

For Buechele to pull ahead of Ehlinger he needs to succeed in two categories,

1. He needs to stay healthy. Buechele will never be the starting quarterback at Texas or anywhere else for that matter if the plague of injuries continues to follow him.
2. He needs to improve his escapability. Last season Buechele was unsuccessful in evading the sack and extending plays, something his counterpart Ehlinger has shown he can do quite well.

Buechele has always been an accurate through the air, he completed 64.3 percent of his passes last season and it is something he has continued to do during spring practices.

On Buechele’s performance so far, Herman had this to say,

“Shane is throwing the ball really well. He’s commanding the offense.”