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Texas QB Quinn Ewers announces he's returning for 2024 season

nick bromberg
College football and motorsports writer
·2 min read
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NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - JANUARY 01: Quinn Ewers #3 of the Texas Longhorns reacts during the second quarter against the Washington Huskies during the CFP Semifinal Allstate Sugar Bowl at Caesars Superdome on January 01, 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Quinn Ewers is back for a third season at Texas. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

Quinn Ewers is coming back to Austin for another season.

The Texas QB announced Thursday that he would return for a third year with the Longhorns and eschew the 2024 NFL Draft. Texas won the Big 12 in 2023 and made the College Football Playoff for the first time.

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Ewers played in 12 games as the Longhorns went 12-2. He missed two games because of a shoulder injury sustained in a 31-24 win at Houston. Over those 12 games, Ewers was 272-of-394 passing for 22 TDs and threw just six interceptions. He also rushed for five touchdowns.

Ewers’ best game of the season came in the Big 12 championship game against Oklahoma State. He set a career-high and a Big 12 title game record with 452 yards passing as he was 35-of-46 and threw four touchdowns and an interception. He threw for 318 yards and a score and also rushed for 54 yards in Texas’ 37-31 loss to Washington in the Sugar Bowl.

He came to Texas ahead of the 2022 season after reclassifying in high school to join Ohio State for the 2021 season. The former five-star prospect didn’t play in 2021 for the Buckeyes and transferred to Texas in 2022 after coach Steve Sarkisian’s first year with the program.

Ewers played in 10 games during his first season in Austin after he suffered a shoulder injury during the team’s Week 2 loss to Alabama. Ewers was 9-of-12 passing for 134 yards in that game before his first-half injury as Alabama kicked a field goal with 10 seconds left to eke out the win.

How much will Arch Manning play in 2024?

Ewers’ return means that Arch Manning will enter the season as Texas’ No. 2 QB unless he beats out the incumbent for the starting job. Manning, the top prospect in the class of 2023, signed with Texas in December 2022 and played in two games during the 2022 season.

Manning, the nephew of Peyton and Eli, served as the No. 3 QB for much of the season and was the backup to Maalik Murphy while Ewers was injured. With Murphy’s transfer after the Big 12 title game, Manning was Ewers’ backup during the Sugar Bowl.

There have been absolutely no whispers about a potential transfer out of Austin for Manning, and there’s no reason to believe at the moment that Ewers’ return will lead to Manning leaving Texas. After all, Ewers’ return isn’t much of a surprise. The possibility of Ewers coming back for another season had been publicly discussed for weeks and his announcement Thursday is a big reason why Texas enters its first season in the SEC as one of the favorites to win the conference.