The saga of Quinn Ewers: Putting one of the most unique careers in college football history in context

Our story begins sometime in 2006 in Pleasanton, Texas, south of San Antonio. Writing for Garden & Gun, Monte Burke tells a story of a dad taking his son to the high school field where they happen upon another father and son engaging in the same pastime. The other boy, obviously young, is "slinging perfect spirals" at 15 yards out. "It was ridiculous," he said. As the other dad asked Curtis Ewers how old his son was, Ewers replied, "Three."

Now, as a dad who coached both of my boys when they were early in elementary school, allow me to state definitively as an expert on the topic: a 6-year-old throwing a tight spiral at 15 yards is above average. To do it at three is absolutely ridiculous, the relative equivalent of a 16-year-old chunking the pigskin past 70 yards.

This is the story of Quinn Ewers, a kid who was born to throw the football, anointed a prodigy at an early age, broke and made two Texas Longhorns coaches before ever stepping on campus, was an early poster child of college football's NIL era, piloted a dormant blue-blood back to No. 1 in the country, and now stands at a cross-roads. No matter what happens from here, Ewers has a legacy unlike any college football player to come before him, and one unlikely to be repeated by any player to come after. And with half of his final season still to go, Ewers's final chapter could go in a number of different directions.

Oct. 4, 2019: In a game that featured close to two dozen future FBS players on both sides, a sophomore Quinn Ewers outshines them all. Denton Guyer, an eventual 6A Division II state finalist, jumped out to a 14-0 lead, but Ewers accounted for 448 yards and six touchdowns, including a 70-yard scoring dash to clinch it, in a 46-34 Southlake Carroll win. Ewers was already generating buzz in his first season as a starting quarterback, but this was his coming out party.

Nov. 22, 2019: Writing for 247Sports, national scouting analyst Gabe Brooks notes Ewers is "(e)lite QB among nation's top 2022 prospects, regardless of position. Projects to high-major level with long-term early-round NFL Draft ceiling."

Aug. 14, 2020: Ewers commits to Texas.

Oct. 28, 2020: Ewers de-commits from Texas. Though the move would not come for two more months, the Tom Herman era in Austin ended the moment Ewers hit 'publish' on his de-commitment tweet. Texas had started the year in the AP top-10, but sat at 3-2 and out of the AP Top 25 at the time. Coaches can't survive if they can't recruit, and the most important recruit on the board cast a vote of no confidence in the Herman regime.

Nov. 19, 2020: Ewers commits to Ohio State.

Dec. 9, 2020: Ewers becomes the sixth player, and first quarterback since Vince Young 19 years prior, to garner a perfect 1.0000 rating in the 247Sports composite.

Jan. 16, 2021: After returning from a hernia injury that kept him out of multiple games in mid-season, Ewers leads Southlake Carroll back to the 6A Division I state championship game, to date the program's only title game appearance after reaching six championship games from 2002-11. In one of the biggest games in the national history of high school football, he throws for 351 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions as son Riley Dodge's Carroll Dragons lost to father Todd Dodge's Austin Westlake squad, 52-34. Though no one knew so at the time, it would be Ewers's final high school football game.

Aug. 2, 2021: Ewers re-classifies from 2022 to 2021 to leave Southlake Carroll and enroll immediately at Ohio State in order to capitalize on NIL deals reportedly worth millions of dollars. He is rated the No. 1 player in the class of 2021. 

Nov. 20, 2021: Ewers plays in his first and only game as a Buckeye, handing the ball off twice in the waning moments of No. 4 Ohio State's 56-7 demolition of No. 7 Michigan State.

Dec. 3, 2021: Ewers enters the transfer portal.

Dec. 12, 2021: Tough Texas Tech gave an honest and spirited pursuit, Ewers commits to Texas for a second time. The day before, 5-star recruit Kelvin Banks committed to Texas, and 4-star offensive tackle Cameron Williams pledged to UT hours before Ewers. Those three commitments were pivotal votes of confidence in Steve Sarkisian following his 5-7 debut season.

June 23, 2022: Arch Manning commits to Texas. 

Sept. 10, 2022: Ewers completes 9-of-12 passes for 134 yards versus No. 1 Alabama before leaving the game in the first quarter with a shoulder injury. Would Ewers have torched the Tide for 400 yards and four touchdowns in a stunning upset, or would Alabama have caught up to him as the game wore on? As if penned by an HBO writing team, the phenom shows just enough to allow for both possibilities.

Oct. 8, 2022: Ewers returns after missing three and three-quarters games to complete 21-of-31 passes for 289 yards with four touchdowns and one interception in a 49-0 evisceration of Oklahoma.

Oct. 22, 2022: Ewers completes 19-of-49 passes for 319 yards and two touchdowns with three interceptions in a 41-34 loss at Oklahoma State.

Nov. 12, 2022: Ewers completes 17-of-39 throws for 171 yards with no touchdowns and one interception in a 17-10 loss to No. 2 TCU. After the game, Sarkisian said he never considered pulling Ewers for backup Hudson Card. "It's easy to point at one guy, but that wasn't the case. We didn't play good offensive football."

Feb. 9, 2023: In the biggest layup branding move imaginable, Ewers appears publicly for the first time through Xavier Worthy's Instagram story without his trademark blonde mullet. "I knew something had to change," he would later say. "So I started with the hair and decided to chop it off. And then drop weight and kind of get in better shape. Get more so I could take hits better and what not, just get more comfortable."

Sept. 9, 2023: Ewers completes 24-of-38 passes for 349 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions in a 34-24 win at No. 3 Alabama. 

Oct. 7, 2023: In perhaps the Most Quinn Ewers Game Ever, Ewers commits three turnovers and also sets a school record with 19 consecutive completions while going 31-of-37 for 346 yards in a 34-30 loss to No. 12 Oklahoma. Trailing 27-17 at one point in the second half, Texas led 30-27 before Oklahoma's final drive.

Oct. 21, 2023: Ewers exits Texas's game at Houston in the third quarter with a shoulder injury. In a game the Longhorns led 21-0 in the second quarter, backup Maalik Murphy nurses home a 31-24 victory.

Nov. 11, 2023: Ewers returns from injury to complete 22-of-33 throws for 317 yards with one touchdown and one interception in a 29-26 win at TCU. In a game Texas led 26-6 at the half, Ewers connects with Adonai Mitchell for 35 yards on a 3rd-and-12 from the Texas 13 with 2:06 to play to ice the contest. 

Dec. 2, 2023: Ewers sets a Big 12 Championship record with 452 passing yards as No. 7 Texas sets a title-game record with 662 total yards in a 49-21 destruction of Oklahoma State, securing the program's first conference championship since 2009.

Dec. 3, 2023: Texas is selected for the College Football Playoff for the first time in the format's 10th year of existence.

Jan. 1, 2024: Third-seeded Texas falls 37-31 to No. 2 Washington in the Sugar Bowl. Ewers completes 24-of-43 passes for 318 yards and a touchdown in attempting to lead Texas back from a 34-21 fourth quarter deficit, but is unable to connect with Mitchell on two throws to the end zone on the game's final plays.

Jan. 11, 2024: As expected, Ewers announces he will return for a third season at Texas. 

April 20, 2024: Manning completes 19-of-25 throws for 355 yards and three touchdowns in the Orange-White spring game.

May 16, 2024: Along with Michigan's Donovan Edwards and Colorado's Travis Hunter, Ewers appears on the cover of College Football 25, more than three years after EA Sports announced it would revive the beloved video game series.

Sept. 7, 2024: Ewers completes 26-of-34 passes for 246 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions in No. 3 Texas's 31-12 defeat of No. 3 Michigan, snapping the defending national champions' 23-game home winning streak. Ewers jumps from fourth to first in BetMGM's Heisman odds.

Sept. 14, 2024: After completing 14-of-16 throws for 185 yards with two touchdowns and an interception, Ewers leaves an eventual 56-7 win over UTSA with an abdominal injury.

Sept. 28, 2024: In his second start, Manning completes 26-of-31 passes for 325 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions to lead No. 1 Texas past Mississippi State, 35-13. To that point in the season, Manning has thrown 78 passes for 901 yards with nine touchdowns (plus three rushing) and two picks.

Oct. 12, 2024: Ewers returns to action to connect on 20-of-29 attempts for 199 yards with two total touchdowns and one pick in a 34-3 romp over No. 18 Oklahoma, making him the first UT quarterback since Colt McCoy to win the Golden Hat twice.

Oct. 17, 2024: When asked in a conference call with media two days before a visit from No. 5 Georgia what he would need to see to make an in-game switch at quarterback, Sarkisian curtly responds, "I'm not even going to answer that. I don't know what the question is. Next question." 

Oct. 19, 2024: After going scoreless with two turnovers and three 3-and-outs in his first six drives, Ewers is pulled for Manning a first half that would see Georgia take a 23-0 lead. Ewers played the entire second half in an eventual 30-15 loss, completing 25-of-43 passes for 211 yards with two touchdowns, two turnovers and five sacks. "I felt Quinn was a little uneasy. I felt like giving him a chance to step back and regroup. I didn't know if we would get a series or two with Arch (Manning), depending on how much time was on the clock. So, we just told Quinn, 'Hey, we are going to go with Arch here and give you a chance to go into the locker room to regroup and come back out the second half.' That's what we did. I felt like it was effective. He came out and played a much better second half," Sarkisian said afterward.

Oct. 22, 2024: Sarkisian reiterates that Ewers is Texas's starter. “We have confidence and belief in him. I think he’s going to come out and play really good football for us here in the second half of the season.” Hours later, a hacked post on 247's Instagram account stating Ewers would opt out of the remainder of the season spread like wildfire across the Internet. Ewers responded in a post on his Instagram story with a gif of Donald Trump saying, "Fake news."

And so that brings us to today. 

At 6:50 p.m. local time on Saturday, Texas was No. 1 in the country, playing before a record crowd of 105,215 and an audience of nearly 13 million at home with an opportunity to dethrone the SEC's King Kong, and doing so behind a battle-tested third-year starting quarterback who'd beaten Alabama, Michigan, and Oklahoma twice, all away from home. Everything Sarkisian and company had worked for was inches away from their grasp. 

Now, No. 5 Texas is mired among five 1-loss teams in SEC play, all of whom are looking up at 4-0 Texas A&M and 3-0 LSU. A squad that looked like the most complete team in the country couldn't run the ball, couldn't pass protect, and even when it did those things, its receivers couldn't get open and, even when they did, its quarterback(s) either didn't locate them or couldn't hit them.

Ewers has regressed since his return from injury. He's looked hesitant to climb the pocket and resistant to step into throws. He was PFF's lowest-graded starter against Oklahoma and Georgia. 

Gifted with a preternatural ability to throw the football, Ewers has too often played quarterback like a brilliant student who never bothered to learn good study habits and now finds himself drowning in course work at Harvard Law School. His footwork is often the first attribute to go when the terrain gets choppy. 

Perhaps this is when Ewers buckles down, plays his best football, and leads Texas to a national championship. That's on the table.

Or, if Ewers doesn't improve from his output over the next two weeks, Texas could lose at No. 25 Vanderbilt on Saturday and a dream season could devolve into a complete mess in eight days' time. Texas could end what oh-so-recently looked like a dream season in the Gator Bowl, and Ewers could slip from Round 1 to Day 3 of next spring's draft. That's also on the table. As is everything else in between. 

No player has done more for Sarkisian's coaching career than Ewers, from validating him by committing to quarterbacking those wins at Bryant-Denny, the Big House and the Cotton Bowl. Sarkisian has rewarded that faith with an unrelenting loyalty rarely seen in college football. But Sarkisian risks making Ewers bigger than the program if Ewers plays at Vanderbilt like he did versus Oklahoma and Georgia, and Manning's shadow looms large at a place where the ghosts of Major Applewhite and Chris Simms still haunt the corners of the fan base's psyche. 

Simply put, if Ewers doesn't play better, he puts Sarkisian in a lose-lose situation. And so he has to play better, starting with re-committing to mastering the basics of quarterback play, now and immediately.

A kid who looked like a quarterbacking prodigy from the first time he picked up a pigskin, a recruit so highly valued he toppled an entire coaching regime from his childhood bedroom, Ewers has brought Texas back -- word choice intentional -- to prominence. A conference championship, a No. 1 ranking, monumental wins at iconic venues, all of that happened under his watch. At the same time, this No. 1 recruit has seen his tenure overshadowed by another Quarterback Who Was Promised, one who happens to be the crown prince of the quarterback position's royal family no less. Ewers has deftly played off the Arch Manning hype, but at the same time he can't be deaf to the sound of the cheers when Arch steps on the field. 

As one of the most impactful and eventful careers in college football history enters its final chapter, everything is possible but one thing is certain: it'll be anything but boring.