With Texas Longhorns redshirt junior quarterback Quinn Ewers back on the Forty Acres to finally live where his feet are to continue living out his lifelong dream of playing in burnt orange and white while positioning himself for the 2025 NFL Draft, one critical storyline the Southlake Carroll product faces is whether his production and on-field accomplishments will finally match the recruiting rankings that once assessed him as the best quarterback prospect evaluated during the modern era.
The projections remain high for Ewers as a professional prospect — Dane Brugler of The Athletic currently ranks him as QB2 behind Georgia’s Carson Beck for next season, but anonymous coaches who spoke to Bruce Feldman, also of The Athletic, remain more skeptical of Ewers.
Let’s break down those opinions and where Ewers is in his career trajectory
Quote: “I’m not that high on him. Overhyped. He has a good arm, and he did have a lot of talent around him, but you just see a bunch of stuff where you wonder what he’s doing out there.”
Source: DB coach who played Texas last year
Assessment: If the standard for judging whether Ewers is “overhyped” is the evaluation of him as the best quarterback prospect in a generation, perhaps that’s fair. Or at least not exceedingly unfair.
A more sober perspective on Ewers would consider the reps he missed when he was injured as a junior at Carroll and the reps he missed buried on the depth chart at Ohio State after re-classifying to the 2021 recruiting class.
That perspective would consider the limitations of the 2022 Texas offense — the broken hand that Xavier Worthy played through, the absolute lack of wide receiver depth following injuries to Isaiah Neyor and Jordan Whittington, and the inexperience of tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders.
That perspective would note the vast improvement of Ewers in 2023 as his pass catchers improved, growth shown in his completion percentage jumping to 69 percent, his yards per attempt soaring to 8.8, and his interception rate dropping to 1.5 percent.
It’s that interception rate in particular that begs for more context for this defensive back coach’s view that Ewers does “a bunch of stuff where you wonder what he’s doing out there.”
Unfortunately, that context isn’t present, but it’s worth noting that Ewers is working to grow this offseason in his ability to read defenses and has improved his pocket presence, according to Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian.
