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Former Texas QB David Ash to try hand at baseball?

Hey, why not?

By Wescott Eberts
Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports

In the weeks since retiring from the game of football, former Texas Longhorns quarterback David Ash has been working towards his degree, a task that head coach Charlie Strong said has mostly kept him away from the team except for some practices.

As he prepares to graduate and get ready for the next stage of his life, there may be another sport involved in that process, according to reports:

The news was first broken on Monday evening by Horns Sports and the original report is behind a paywall here.

It's not clear what stage of development this is in, but Horns247 is reporting that Ash has already spent time on the mound working with pitching coach Skip Johnson, indicating that there has been some contact and clearance with the staff for the attempt.

A Texas official also provided the following on Tuesday after the reports emerged:

And it's also not clear what type of background Ash has in the game -- his Texas bio says that he lettered in track and basketball at Belton, but there was no mention of baseball. In fact, a Google search doesn't reveal any history for Ash with the game.

Could he do it? Many quarterbacks with above-average arm strength have fastballs that sit in the upper 80s to low 90s and there's no question that Ash has above-average arm strength.

Of course, pitching is about much more than just arm strength, as Ash would have to master at least one secondary pitch and be able to command the fastball to have a chance of making the team in any capacity.

At least one AL scout is intrigued by the idea, however:

Right now, it's probably best to file this one away as a pretty extreme longshot, but wouldn't it be nice to see Ash back competing in a Texas uniform?

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