Column: A N-Ewer day has arrived
Three years ago, I penned one of my favorite things I’ve written for Inside Texas titled “A new day in QB recruiting is Rising.” It was published when Casey Thompson and Cam Rising entered the NCAA Transfer Portal on successive days in the first year of the database’s existence.
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The basic premise of the story was quarterbacks go to schools that will put them in the best position to succeed as early in their career as possible. If they don’t find that at the place they chose, they will leave to find another program that will offer them the playing time and development they desire (along with several other variables).
Rising left for Utah, where he now is the entrenched starter of the Pac-12 champions after a one season spent sitting out and one season hampered by injury. Thompson is sort of the exception to the rule, but he was always a snap away from playing at Texas if something were to happen to Sam Ehlinger prior to the 2021 season.
Texas saw two of its quarterbacks enter the portal in 2018 because their path to playing time was blocked for at least two more years by a second-year quarterback who took control of the situation.
The exact same thing just happened at Ohio State.
Once redshirt freshman C.J. Stroud won the job and elevated his game to that of a Heisman finalist, the path forward for playing time for others in Ryan Day’s quarterback room all but evaporated.
First, Jack Miller entered the portal. Then, the big domino finally fell. Quinn Ewers entered the portal on December 3, sparking a frenzy over the second recruitment of On3’s Consensus No. 1 prospect in the 2021 class.
Ewers’ reclassification from 2022 to 2021 always seemed a bit more business oriented than football oriented. He appeared in a kombucha ad less than a week after reclassifying, taking quick advantage of the recently enacted Name, Image, and Likeness law in Texas. In doing so, he began his three-year clock outside of high school football required by the NFL before entering the draft.
Learning an offense and gaining reps, plus moving up on the depth chart at a place like Ohio State, is difficult for someone who decided to go to Columbus, Ohio a week before arriving. A COVID-19 situation made that task even more difficult.
Maybe it was Stroud’s arrival on the scene after the Buckeyes’ loss to Oregon. Maybe it was a number of different things that led Ewers to depart Columbus.
But what cost Texas and Tom Herman a quality quarterback in 2018 served to benefit Steve Sarkisian in 2021.
Ewers’ choice to transfer to Texas shows not only the current situation in AJ Milwee’s quarterback room, where a clear-cut No. 1 isn’t present, but also that Texas is willing to do whatever it takes to upgrade or at the very least bring competition to what Sarkisian calls the most important position in sports.
The new landscape was revealed three years ago. With Ewers’ commitment, Texas finally arrived in full where others, including the school’s main rival, had often tread.
And they did so in a big, blonde, way.
