Despite recent criticism of Texas football’s Sam Ehlinger by some notable people, he is one of the top quarterbacks going into 2019.
For whatever reason, there has been some criticism of Sam Ehlinger from some well-known members of the football world as of late. Most college football fans know what I’m referring to, so I will not dive any further into it — for anyone who does not know what I am referring to, it should be easy to find with a simple Google search.
If someone were to take a dive into Ehlinger’s film, I think they would come away impressed and would be more than happy to have him quarterback their team. His improvement from his freshman to his sophomore year was evident as we went through the film of his 2018 season.
There are many traits and attributes that make Ehlinger a successful quarterback and we will break down a few of them over the next few pages, but arguably his most important trait that made him successful last year was his ability to improve.
Ehlinger’s freshman season in 2017 was up and down, but he showed glimpses of greatness. In today’s game, it’s easy to write someone off if they don’t have a great season. Fans and even some coaches lack patience to allow players to develop and go through growing pains to get better.
There are many “box score analysts” out there that only look at stats and box scores to determine their thoughts on players, however, in Ehlinger’s case, his improvement on all his numbers from his freshman to his sophomore season show his ability to grow as a quarterback and his potential to continue to develop. Let’s take a quick look at the improvement.
- His ability to take care of the football improved tremendously as he only had five interceptions over 425 attempts in 2018 compared to seven interceptions over 275 attempts in 2017. He also had 308 attempts without an interception, which is a Big 12 record.
- His improvement in his accuracy as he went from completing 57.5 percent of his passes in 2017 to 64.7 percent of his passes in 2018. Ten out of his 14 games in 2018 he had a completion percentage of 60 or higher.
- Taking care of the football and completing a high percentage of passes are two parts of a quarterbacks game that can lead to success, Ehlinger improved in both of those categories.
Let’s look at a few more traits that help make Ehlinger such a good quarterback.