Vince Young believes Sam Ehlinger, Tom Herman has Texas back

Vince Young is excited about the direction of Texas football under head coach Tom Herman and quarterback Sam Ehlinger.

Tom Herman’s second season at Texas went much better than his first, and Longhorn great Vince Young is awfully excited about the future of the program after some tough times in previous years under Charlie Strong. Texas finished with a 10-4 record and a convincing win over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl behind the efforts of budding superstar quarterback Sam Ehlinger.

“I’m happy for them,” Young said. “It’s been a tough road getting to this point. Coach Strong did some really good things when he was there. He helped rebuild what type of players we want on campus. I hated to see him go, but he did some really good things. Then Tom came in with his expertise, and he got the team going back to where it needs to be.”

Something Young is really happy to see back is the camaraderie among the team, something that was clear during his own playing career.

“Having fun, enjoying the moment, enjoying the game. The chemistry my guys had when we played, that’s back. Just to see the guys having fun together, they always hanging out together, they’re with each other. It’s not one or two guys together, it’s six-10 guys, so that’s good to see.”

That has carried over to Herman’s staff, where Young has seen the coaches putting in overtime to make sure they can bring Texas back to national prominence, competing for Big 12 championships and a spot in the College Football Playoff.

“The coaching staff, everybody is enjoying themselves and putting more extra work in to make sure our younger guys are doing everything they need to do to be successful.”

One of the players putting in extra work is quarterback Sam Ehlinger, who threw for 3,292 yards, 25 touchdowns to only five interceptions, and had 16 rushing touchdowns. Young knows all about the significance of what it means to wear the Burnt Orange jersey and represent Texas as the team’s starting quarterback, and he couldn’t be happier for Ehlinger’s success thus far.

“Being an Austin native, playing football there and watching UT play since he was a kid, it’s just a beautiful story to see the things that are happening for him. I’m very happy for him, and I can’t be any more proud of him. I talk to him on the phone a lot, keep in touch, things like that, so I couldn’t be any happier for him. Everything he’s doing is well deserved.”

There are few more prestigious roles in college sports than the starting quarterback for the Texas Longhorns. Young relayed to Ehlinger how difficult it can be to handle that responsibility, but Ehlinger, Shane Buechele and the other Texas signal-callers have been quick to pick Young’s brain for advice.

“Well, it’s tough, so I told him it’s tough,” Young said.

“I have an opportunity to be around Sam and Shane Buechele a lot. I got an opportunity to watch, be in the meeting rooms and hang out with them. [Texas offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach] Tim Beck, he does a good job when I come to practice. He always lets me speak to the guys, ‘What do you see they need to do Vince?’ They always bump questions off me, so to have a relationship with those guys and to see Sam coming into his own, I couldn’t be happier for him.”