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ON TRACK
d a monster season—Texas quar terback SAM EHLINGER announced his team’s return to relevance.e is to get the Longhorns into the title race. A tough task, sure, but it’s one the Austin native was born to tackle
AM EHLINGER promises he was not plan-
ning to say those words. You know the
ones. “Big words,” as Tom Herman says.
Last New Year’s Day, Texas beat Georgia
28–21 in the Sugar Bowl to seal its first
10-win season since 2009. Ehlinger ran
for three touchdowns, completed a two-
point conversion and was named MVP,
and the Longhorns’ defense held one of
the SEC’s most physical teams to a season-
low 284 total yards on 4.4 yards per play. The performance seemed like
validation that, after a decade of mediocrity, Texas football had turned
a corner.
“We’re baaaaaack,” he said, holding the ‘ah’ for four seconds.
Ehlinger had just completed a breakout sophomore season—his first
as the starting quarterback. He had 16 rushing touchdowns to break
Vince Young’s single-season record (14 in 2004) for a quarterback and
came close to Colt McCoy’s 2008 record for most touchdowns in a sea-
son. (Ehlinger had 41, four fewer than McCoy.) While standing onstage
at the Superdome surrounded by his teammates, wearing an oversized
sugar bowl championship T-shirt over his bulky football pads, he
was feeling good. When asked how this gritty victory might propel the
program forward, Ehlinger didn’t hesitate to deliver his message.
Texas has always been one of those programs that’s easy to hate. “Texas
is back” became a meme after the Longhorns beat Notre Dame in the