ABILENE, TX – The Texas Longhorns are entering into a very unique situation in 2021, as Sam Ehlinger is no longer the quarterback in Austin and they’re looking to replace him with one of two possible players. On 247Sports’ Late Kick show, Josh Pate described what he saw from the two players.
“What I did see, is I think I saw enough from Casey Thompson and I think I saw enough from — or felt enough from how they feel, their staff feels, about him to believe that’s the guy that has the edge,” Pate said. “But having said that, there is a big thing that happens around some of these programs when there isn’t a whole lot of information, you know, when there isn’t a whole lot of eyeballs at practice every day consistently delivering information.”
A four-star prospect in Texas’ 2018 recruiting class, Thompson redshirted in 2018 and then played sparingly in his redshirt freshman season, playing in just four games and throwing just 12 pass attempts on the season as a whole. But when Thompson got his chances in 2020, he took advantage of them.
Against UTEP in September, Thompson threw just seven passes for 55 yards but had two touchdowns on those throws. He did not throw a pass in Texas’ game against Kansas State, his second of the year, but then he got extensive time on the field in the Alamo Bowl. Following Ehlinger’s departure from the game, Thompson went 8-of-10 for 170 yards and four passing touchdowns.
His experience at the college level and what he has showcased makes Thompson a heavy favorite to be the starter, but the job is anything but decided for the Longhorns. Also in the mix is 2020, four-star recruit Hudson Card, who is a local recruit out of Austin. Card played in two games in his true freshman season, thus preserving his redshirt. Card threw just four pass attempts in 2020, completing two of them for four yards. Pate said he saw some plays from Card that showed he might be able to play as well.
“Hudson Card yesterday, had some good moments to where if you had never read a practice report and you just watched this yesterday, you would think to yourself, ‘Oh, these guys look pretty even,’” Pate said. “I don’t know if that’s reality. But you could make that reasonable conclusion. So, like, I thought — I thought there were moments, okay? That’s all I’m saying. And again it’s very, very different than what you’re going to see them asked to do in the regular season.”
No matter who emerges as the starting quarterback for the Longhorns this season, there’s no question that the challenge is going to be incredibly large for QB1. In addition to being the quarterback to open up the Sarkisian era, someone needs to get Texas back on the right track to being competitive on the national level.
