DALLAS — Quinn Ewers is the barometer.
As Texas‘ QB1 goes, so goes the fortunes of the 2024 Longhorns.
When it comes to winning national championships, few teams hoist that crystal ball without having a real dog at quarterback. The two most visible passers in the SEC will take quite a few snaps before they take the same field at Royal-Memorial Stadium on Oct. 19, but the preseason hype is real.
Ewers and Georgia’s Carson Beck are gobbling up all the Heisman Trophy talk this summer with SEC mate Jalen Milroe of Alabama occupying the dark-horse role. It’s become a quarterback’s award with 12 signal callers winning it over the last 14 seasons.
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Ewers is an emerging talent with NFL aspirations in a sport where it’s understood that the best teams playing on the final weekend won’t have a bum under center. He was surrounded by a peloton of cameras and recorders when Texas took center stage at SEC media days Wednesday at the Omni Hotel, and in true Ewers fashion, he kept it low-key. No quotes that could be turned into bulletin board material. No call-outs of the Aggies.
Just Quinn.
He’s a laid-back guy whose fire is more internal than external. Standing much taller in a shiny pair of black boots with thick heels, the 6-foot-2 Ewers took in questions about college football’s most coveted award with the casualness of a bank teller counting out $1,000 in Franklins at the end of an eight-hour shift.
“Quinn is like the coolest guy in the room,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. “He doesn’t get caught up in that stuff. When Quinn gets free time, he’s going to go hunt or go fish. When he’s here, he’s going to go to work with his teammates. He’s more focused on winning a championship and being the best player he can be.”
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While Ewers’ 2023 numbers were nice — 3,479 passing yards, completing 69% of his passes with 22 touchdown tosses and only six interceptions — a realistic Heisman campaign would have to house much bigger numbers, even in the biggest team sport in the world. Last year’s winner, LSU’s Jayden Daniels, accounted for 50 touchdowns and nearly 5,000 yards for LSU. Ewers’ numbers improve upon his previous output — that is, if he can avoid the injury bug, having missed five games in the last two seasons.
As for the Heisman, he isn’t spending too much time striking that famous pose in July.
“The Heisman is a great honor for sure,” Ewers said. “But you know, coach Sark says it all the time: With team success comes individual accolades. I just want to go out there and take it one week at a time and win every day and win every week. When the team wins, all the individuals will get all that cool stuff.”
With supervised team workouts starting July 31, Ewers will take the reins of a team that lost plenty of offensive firepower this offseason as pass catchers Xavier Worthy, Adonai Mitchell, Jordan Whittington and Ja’Tavion Sanders joined running back Jonathon Brooks in the NFL.
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While he will never be confused with the more outgoing, locker room dancer we witnessed with the legendary Vince Young back in the day, Ewers has become more vocal in the last couple of seasons since arriving as a cherubic-faced transfer who’d skipped his senior season at Southlake Carroll to enroll at Ohio State.
Sarkisian said Ewers the freshman was trying to survive under some trying circumstances. The quarterback we see now isn’t a finished product, but he is a legitimate Heisman candidate for as much as he has matured mentally and as much as the bulk that he has gained physically.
“I think his personal development and his emotional development is something that has instilled a ton of confidence in everybody in our building,” Sarkisian said. “He walks in that building like he is the starting quarterback at the University of Texas, like we’re a top-five football team. And I think that has permeated throughout our locker room. Even the way I think he’s carrying himself today is drastically different than maybe how he carried himself a year ago.”
They say championships are won in the offseason, and Ewers had a great spring on the field by most accounts though the true measure will come to bear in the leadership he displays in the huddle this fall. In a locker room not lacking in leaders, he has been one of its most outspoken voices, one of the chosen few who have taken on the responsibility of leading offseason workouts with the understanding that getting buy-in from the younger players and backups is key to building a champion here.
Ewers orchestrated player-only workouts on…
Austin American-Statesman
