Golden: It's up to Quinn Ewers to embrace the high expectations in Texas' Big 12 swan song
ARLINGTON — Quinn Ewers, it’s time for you take over this Texas ball club.
Embrace the expectations. Get in attack mode. Meet the hype. Shoot, kick that hype in the gut and do something special.
It’s been a while since we’ve witnessed something momentous on a football level in the 512, and the Longhorns are in position to make it happen this fall.
But will they?
It all starts behind center.
No great Texas team ever went anywhere without an alpha dog at quarterback and it’s time for Ewers to be the face of the franchise.
Yes, I know he’s a laid back guy who has been more of a lead-by-example type even though we saw some growth in the vocal leadership department toward the end of last season. For the Longhorns to leave the Big 12 the same way they entered — with a league championship — Ewers will have to more bulldog than blender in his second year as the starter.
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Coach Steve Sarkisian said Ewers has been more vocal in team meetings and on the field, he is dialed in on making things happen on offense.
“He’s earned the respect of his teammates throughout this time and throughout this process,” Sarkisian said.
Wednesday’s Big 12 media days was the junior quarterback’s first appearance in front of reporters since spring football and Ewers looked the part: lean with a trimmed beard sporting a preppy Longhorns golf shirt.
Consistency and staying healthy will be the top priorities, of course, and Ewers has been put in the position to achieve success behind an experienced offensive line — sophomore left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. is a future first-round pick — with the deepest group of pass catchers in the league and a talented, if not yet extraordinary stable of running backs.
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If anything, the near future is bright because Ewers was quick to accept responsibility for his struggles last season. He didn’t shrug off his 17-for39 performance in that painful 10-3 loss to TCU — the Frogs held Texas’ offense out of the end zone for the second time in seven seasons — or that 19-for-49 disappointment in the loss to Oklahoma State.
Sarkisian said his quarterback took all the blame for that game.
“Obviously, I didn’t like where I was last year,” Ewers said. “Obviously, something had to change if I wanted to end up where I want to be in the future. I’m starting right here. I’m eating a lot better. I’m doing a lot of the small things a lot harder and I’m excited.”
One thing that should help Ewers navigate a pivotal season is his calm approach, but the hope here is he will show more outward emotion because that kind of energy from the most important position in sports can spread like wildfire and inspire others.
If things fall the right way, upside, talent and ability will converge to put Texas in the postseason mix come December. Better yet, he closed the season with a 65% completion rate over his last three games, including a massive 369-yard performance in the Alamo Bowl that would have been even bigger had star wideout Xavier Worthy — playing with a broken hand — been able to haul in a couple of deep throws in the same third-quarter drive quarter.
He flashed some good upside over the last three games, with an improved 65% completion rate, up from his season number of 58.1. He will enter fall camp again having thrown 118 consecutive passes without an interception.
All signs point to a bigger, better season
Accountability is everything and we saw growth from Ewers in that area. He wasn’t happy with how things went overall in his first year as a starter and didn’t run away from the expectations that will come his way in Year 2. He hit the weights harder in the spring, changed his diet and his coaches and teammates noticed. Ewers and the other quarterbacks posed for a group pic, all shirtless and flexing biceps, pecs and abs.
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As far as stats go, keep a couple of eyeballs on that touchdowns column because it goes without saying that 15 scoring tosses — his total in 10 games — won’t cut it with no Bijan Robinson or Roschon Johnson gobbling up rushing yards in the backfield.
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As for him mentioning the future, it was a nod to the pros, where NFL draft projections have apparently gone all in on Ewers 2.0. In the same offseason that Texas was picked to win the Big 12 for the first time since 2009, ESPN’s latest mock draft has the Washington Commanders grabbing him with the eighth overall pick, the third quarterback taken behind projected top pick Caleb Williams of USC (to the Arizona Cardinals) and No. 3 Drake Maye of North Carolina (to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers).
That projection comes with a nice piece of expectation and if it happens, Ewers would become only the third quarterback in school history to go in the first round, right up there with Longhorns legends Bobby Layne and Vince Young who went third overall in the 1948 and 2006 drafts, respectively.
More than just a big arm
The arm talent is there for the 20-year-old but others have witnessed him taking on a more cerebral approach to his craft.
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“I’ve seen a lot of improvement as far as leadership,” said senior wideout Jordan Whittington. “All the stuff off the field, I see so much improvement. And then on the field, he’s so much more patient, so much more mature in the pocket. And his arm talent has always been amazing. I have a lot of trust in him. We all do.”
New UAB coach Trent Dilfer believes Ewers is as good as projected. The former Austin resident — the sixth overall pick in the 1994 draft who went on to quarterback the Baltimore Ravens to the Super Bowl XXXV title — told Sports Illustrated this week that Ewers reminds him of Jeff George, the cannon-armed top overall pick in 1994 who played 14 NFL seasons. But he wants to see him get more seasoning, more reps.
“You’ve got to play 30 games before we really know,” Dilfer said. “You’ve got to see it. It’s not just talent. We made this mistake for years in the NFL. It’s not just talent. It’s this weird matrix of everything working together. And the only way we know to start sorting that matrix out is by watching them play football games.”
Ewers’ best football is ahead of him. His coaches and teammates believe in him and it’s obvious he believes in himself.
“There’s not a throw he can’t make” Sarkisian said. “He’s got a very good football IQ. And if things go the way we think they can go, the pundits are probably right. He is a first-round draft pick.”
It’s why Ewers came here. Now all that remains is meeting those lofty expectations.
So, on the doorstep of the most important season of his young life, what does Ewers think about being such a highly rated prospect?
"I saw that but I try not to pay too much attention to it," he said. "I try not to get too high on the highs or too low on the lows. I just try to play my game. As long as the team goals are accomplished, the individual accolades will kind of fall into place."
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers embraces lofty expectations in 2023
