Saturday’s game between the Texas Longhorns and Kansas State Wildcats will feature quarterbacks on opposite sides of the spectrum.
For Kansas State, freshman quarterback Will Howard will be under center. Howard has started ever since the injury to incumbent starter Skylar Thompson against the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Howard has been the quarterback of record over their last six games. The freshman will now take on a team led by the nation’s most experienced quarterback, Sam Ehlinger.
With the Big 12 Championship now firmly out of reach, there was an idea tossed around about getting Casey Thompson or Hudson Card involved in playing. Head coach Tom Herman addressed any possibility of playing younger players over Ehlinger down the stretch.
Herman shot it down, “this is Sam‘s team. He deserves to play his final season all the way through.” Unless it becomes a blowout or an injury, there won’t be any backups playing at quarterback. The former is a bit of a stretch since Herman hasn’t shown the ability to put distance between them and Power Five Conference opponents.
The Senior vs The Freshman Comparison
| Ehlinger | vs | Howard |
| 6-3 | Ht | 6-4 |
| 225 | Wt | 230 |
| Senior | Class | Freshman |
| 46 | Games | 8 |
Passer Comparison
| Ehlinger | vs | Howard |
| 164 | Comp | 74 |
| 279 | Att | 141 |
| 58.8 | Comp % | 52.5 |
| 2,132 | Yards | 1,004 |
| 13.0 | Yards/Comp | 13.6 |
| 7.6 | Yards/Att | 7.1 |
| 23-5 | TD-INT | 6-8 |
Rusher Comparison
| Ehlinger | vs | Howard |
| 105 | Attempts | 60 |
| 388 | Yards | 285 |
| 3.7 | Yards/Att | 4.8 |
| 8 | TDs | 3 |
Edge: Sam Ehlinger
The experience quarterback is just more dynamic at this point. Will Howard has all the tools to be a top quarterback in the conference but just needs to develop at this point in his career. If Ehlinger is running the ball against Kansas State the way he did Iowa State, it might be a long afternoon for that defense.
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