Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers should make the right decision and return to school | Bohls
While I got ya, here are nine things and one crazy prediction:
Waiting on a quarterback's call
1. Quinn's quandary: Not sure what the holdup is, but sources tell me Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers is expected to return to school and that he decided to come back even before the Sugar Bowl, but is delaying an announcement. One would think Steve Sarkisian would prefer the redshirt sophomore get the news out there more quickly so it could influence others in the transfer portal interested in the Longhorns or future recruits. Ewers appears to be coming back because he could use another season to hone his skills, loves the idea of competing again for a championship, and his NFL draft standing is lower than other more highly regarded quarterbacks like Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, Jayden Daniels and Michael Penix Jr., although NFLdraftbuzz ranks him the seventh quarterback in the 2024 draft and ProFootballNetwork lists him as this year’s 38th overall pick. (I think Penix is going to tear it up in the league.) Ewers needs to come back. Also I’m told by a dialed-in NFL scout that Ewers was given a first- or second-day grade by league evaluators. … Personally I haven’t been that impressed with Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy. He seems like the very definition of game manager. He completed just 10 passes in the Wolverines’ 34-13 bashing of Washington, but his 22-yard scramble may have been the key play of the game because it helped stall the Huskies’ momentum.
Straight from an NFL scout's mouth (and eyes)
2. Horns on the NFL radar: Texas defensive tackles T’Vondre Sweat and Byron Murphy II got those same assessments while injured tailback Jonathon Brooks surprisingly got a second-day grade (second and third rounds) despite his late-season knee injury and wide receiver Xavier Worthy surprisingly got only a third-day grade, which shocks me with his speed and punt return abilities. … “Brooks has very low mileage on his tires, and the timetable for returning will likely be by this year based on the injury,” NFL.com draft analyst Lance Zierlein told me this week. “He can play all three downs and has the vision and elusiveness to create for himself. He could go Round 3, but I think he's going on Day 2 for sure and I would take him in the second off his tape. Worthy is Day 3 to me. From a football standpoint, he's light and doesn't catch through contact effectively at all. He's obviously very fast so I look at him as a lesser version of Jalin Hyatt who got taken in the third last year.” … Sweat and Murphy bring different credentials to the table. “It really comes down to what you are looking for,” Zierlein said. “If you are a team who has been getting gashed in the running game or if you want a big man to keep your linebackers clean to flow and make plays, Sweat is your guy. He's probably not going to play much on passing downs so his draft slotting may not be as high as his actual value to a defense, which could be substantial. … Murphy is a three-down defensive lineman who is a little undersized but has outstanding strength. He's going to get pushed around by double teams some, but he's also going to be too explosive and quick for a lot of single blocks so he will be in line to make plays at a higher clip. He has rush talent and is going to have a strong workout with impressive body composition and low body fat. Just completely different styles of ice cream between the two, but teams will covet both and have both higher up on their boards depending upon the scheme they run.”
More: As many as three Texas Longhorns could go in the first round of the NFL draft | Golden
We meet again — and again ... and maybe again after that
3. It just means more bids: So prepare yourselves, college football fans, for the coming of the SEC-Big Ten Invitational, otherwise known as the new, improved College Football Playoff. With four conference champions guaranteed a spot and probably a berth for the best Group of Five league champion, the remaining seven places are up for grabs. Who do you think is going to get the lion’s share of those? Yep. The two conference behemoths. Had the 12-team format been in place for the length of the four-team model, the SEC and Big Ten would have supplied 7.6 of the dozen teams each year while the other 99 teams would fill up a meager 4.4 of the remaining spots. Those two conferences have to be aiming for at least four of the 12 berths apiece. … What’s really interesting is it’s conceivable that Michigan and Ohio State could play each other not one, not two, but three times in a season, all of them on Nov. 30 and after. I suppose the Longhorns and Sooners could as well if they meet in October as well as a potential SEC title game as the league’s top two teams and again in the CFP playoffs. Rivalry fatigue or college football fans’ nirvana?
Patting myself on the ballot, er back
4. Nailed it: So my final Associated Press Top 25 ballot Tuesday listed Texas at No. 3, one spot ahead of Alabama. The next six in my Top 10 were Georgia, Oregon, Florida State, Ole Miss, Missouri and LSU. … It’s nice to report that in my preseason rankings, I voted eventual winner Michigan as my No. 1 team. The only other voter to put the Wolverines in the top spot was ESPN’s Rece Davis. As for the other three CFP qualifiers, I had Washington No. 9, Alabama No. 3 and Texas No. 7 in my preseason poll. … My biggest whiff? I put USC at No. 8. Probably won’t make that mistake again until Lincoln Riley shows a commitment to some defense. I had Florida State at No. 12. … Already sad that college football is over. Now the talk will be about revenue-sharing for those billions the coaches and schools will take home with little regard for the players, some of whom may actually play 17 games next season. That’s the equivalent of an NFL season. I wonder how that’s going to go over. Would a star player opt out of the playoffs if his team was the No. 12 team and had little chance to win it all? Maybe. When I asked Jim Harbaugh on Tuesday if the current model is sustainable, the Michigan coach went off on a five-minute rant. He cracked on the Pac-12 and said, “a whole conference went into the portal overnight.” But he saved his venom for the NCAA, college administrators and conferences for hogging all the money and not pushing revenue-sharing. “The thing I would change about college football is to let the talent share in the ever-increasing revenues. We're all robbing the same train. And the ones that are in the position to do the heavy lifting, the ones that risk life and limb out there on the football field are the players. The organizations are fighting hard to keep all the money — the universities, the NCAA, the conferences. And it's long past time to let the student-athletes share in the ever-increasing revenues. I mean, it's billions. I keep reading facts about how much money is being made. I mean, product placement. I can't have a can of a different kind of soda up here. I have to put it into a cup here. They're maximizing every single revenue source there is, but they're not sharing it with the talent. There's no business that that would ever fly.” … I wish Harbaugh would stay in college. We have too many cookie-cutter coaches who rarely say anything outside of the norm.
More: Former Texas football coach Tom Herman leaves UT out of top 5 in final coaching poll
Be careful what you wish for, playoff expansion lovers
5. Three losses: No sweat. Get ready for a bunch of three-loss teams crabbing about deserving a spot in the 12-team field. It’ll happen. If the format was already in place this year, no three-loss team would have made it. The highest-ranked three-loss team was No. 13 LSU at 9-3. No. 14 Arizona and the next four — Louisville, Notre Dame, Iowa and North Carolina State — all had three losses. But this was a highly unusual year in which there seemed to be five to eight great teams with unbeaten records or one loss. That rarely happens. We will have a three-loss team, and that, my friends, is the start of the dilution of the regular season. The regular season of college football is the only one that matters in college or NFL although we all know every NFL game is meaningful because of gambling and fantasy football and pure interest. I expect we’ll be at a 24-game CFP by 2030. Why? It’s like a good friend of mine said to me last week, “The answer is money.” I said what is the question. He said, “It doesn’t matter.” … Oklahoma at 10-2 was ranked 12th in the final CFP standings and — get this — would have played Alabama or Texas in the first round in Tuscaloosa or Austin since the Crimson Tide and the Longhorns were tied for fourth.
How Texas should replace Bo Davis
6. A mega loss: Steve Sarkisian hoped to fend off LSU and other suitors for coveted defensive line coach Bo Davis but lost the battle Wednesday when the Tigers announced they landed one of the top defensive line coaches in the country. Davis didn't really want to leave and got a small pay bump from $1 million to $1.25 million. But he wants to coach his son, Beau, a defensive tackle out of Southeastern Louisiana, and there were issues about him getting into Texas. The Tigers were beating his door down, which is a huge blow since Davis is probably the second-most important coach after Sark. Davis is a former second team All-SEC nose guard for LSU, so the move makes some sense. LSU’s Brian Kelly already pried Blake Baker away from Missouri to be his new defensive coordinator, so he’s wasting no time in fixing that horrid defense. Sarkisian should look hard at former Longhorns player and coach Oscar Giles, who is in his second year as defensive line coach and associate head coach at Wyoming. Giles coached under Mack Brown and Tom Herman and recruited players like Sweat, Murphy and tight end Ja'Tavion Sanders.
Keep an eye on Dylan Disu
7. Down with Disu: That was one helluva game Texas had in beating Cincinnati in front of 11,000-plus Tuesday night to get its first Big 12 win. After a loss at home to Texas Tech, the Longhorns could ill afford to start 0-2 in this fire-breathing league. Equally good was Dylan Disu’s re-emergence as a real force with a career-best 33 points before Max Abmas’ game-winning jumper. This win was hugely important moving forward. Disu showed NBA range with four 3-pointers, can take opponents off the dribble, can rebound and is this team’s MVP if Abmas isn’t. After missing nine games and all of fall training because of foot surgery, the Pflugerville product came on with a fury. He’s terrific. … Rodney Terry’s Longhorns still must improve their defense, especially in the paint. Read Jay Bilas’ breakdown of his top 68 teams if the regular season ended today, and he has Texas ranked a lowly 42nd, behind five other Big 12 teams. And don’t lose sight of 11-3 TCU, a surging Oklahoma team that takes on Kansas this Saturday and then overtime king Kansas State.
More: Texas assistant football coach Bo Davis hired away by SEC rival LSU
Searching for ... Ron
8. Scattershooting: While wondering whatever happened to 1996 Sugar Bowl impostor Ron Weaver aka Ron McKelvey or whatever name he’s going by now.
Meanwhile, from the greatest seat in the world ...
9. On the couch: So glad to see “Succession” cleaned up at the Golden Globes. Was a compelling drama about American’s most dysfunctional family. I still thought “Ted Lasso” deserved more awards. Watching the very convoluted “Fool Me Once” on Netflix. Giving it three ducks after four of eight episodes.
One more chance at Ohio State for Ryan Day
Crazy prediction: Ryan Day won’t be the Ohio State coach in 2025 if he loses to Michigan next November.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers faces big career decision on future
