Steve Sarkisian announces Texas QB Quinn Ewers will start vs. TCU

Texas received some major good news on Thursday: Quarterback Quinn Ewers will be back and starting against TCU on Saturday, head coach Steve Sarkisian announced. Ewers has been hurt with a sprained AC joint in his throwing shoulder since Texas’ win at Houston on Oct. 21.

Absent Ewers, the Longhorns had been playing redshirt freshman Maalik Murphy at quarterback. He and Texas managed to survive and get wins against BYU and Kansas State in the interim period.

But now the Longhorns should have their regular starting quarterback available against the final three regular season opponents — and more.

And while Texas managed to survive late against Houston and pull off home wins against BYU and Kansas State, Murphy had his share of struggles, particularly in the second half against the Wildcats. For a team that’s still in College Football Playoff and big 12 title contention, having a full healthy and operational Ewers changes the picture and makes the Longhorns offense a potent, championship-caliber outfit.

Ewers has completed 70.9% of his passes for 1915 yards and 13 touchdowns to three interceptions in the seven games he’s appeared in this season. If he can pick back up where he left off, Texas remains a legit contender during the rest of the season.

Ewers was already day-to-day early this week

Sarkisian said Monday that Ewers is “day to day” and threw the ball Monday morning, according to Gerry Hamilton of On3.

Texas is 8-1 on the year and beat Kansas State 33-30 this past weekend. Murphy was 19-for-37 passing for 248 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions last weekend against the Wildcats.

Sarkisian said following the win over Kansas State on Saturday that Ewers was making progress.

“Quinn’s update, you know, he’s moving in the right direction,” Sarkisian said postgame. “How quickly, I don’t exactly know yet. I know this much, our team is fighting through a lot of stuff from an injury standpoint. We didn’t have Christian Jones all day today. Kelvin Banks went down Hayden Conner had to go to tackle, you know, Ethan Burke was out, he was back in. You know, Kitan Crawford wasn’t able to go today.

“So I think that speaks to the depth of this team. And it’s one thing to have depth. It’s another to have the depth and those guys being prepared to play not only for themselves, but the coaches having faith in them to do that.”