Steve Sarkisian offers update on Quinn Ewers, quarterbacks after naming starter

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian named freshman quarterback Quinn Ewers his starter last week, and gave an update on how his progress has been during this week’s practices.

“I think Quinn has had a good week, I’ve seen some plays where it’s like okay, we’re starting to take another step with him. Some really big-time throws on third down, some of his playmaking in the pocket, made a nice play in two minute today actually using his legs to create an explosive play, so we’re starting to make the strides that I was hopeful for,” Sarkisian said.

The Longhorns are hoping Ewers can continue to take strides quickly, as his first college start is right around the corner versus Louisiana-Monroe followed by a challenging, marquee matchup versus preseason No. 1 ranked Alabama.

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Ewers being named the starter pretty much solidifies Hudson Card as the backup quarterback, and Sarkisian spoke on the development of some of his other third-string quarterbacks like Maalik Murphy, explaining his plan to develop them through a combination of competition and scout team reps against the Longhorns staters.

“With Mailk and with a lot of the guys that are kind of threes we try to have opportunities where our threes are not just doing scouts, but they’re working our offense and our defense competing against one another. But then to make sure they’re still getting reps, you have to get some of that scout team work, because that’s what keeps the speed of the game up for them when they’ve got to go against that first defense or that second defense. All in all continuing to develop, we’ve got to dig into what are the things we need him to work on and want him to work on, then we gotta keep pushing for them to do that,” Sarkisian said.

Waiting your turn to play and being a scout team player isn’t always the most enjoyable job on the team, but Sarkisian is putting an emphasis on celebrating those players and their contribution to the team while developing them into the future players of the program.

“And then we’ve got to celebrate the small victories, I think that’s something when a guy’s not a frontline player the season can be long and so you want to be able to celebrate small victories for not just the quarterback, but anybody. Whether it’s your focusing on effort, when they’re playing with great effort you gotta make sure we celebrate that, when they make an adjustment on a read and then they do it, we’ve gotta celebrate that because we want to make sure we’re keeping those guys motivated in a positive light because it’ll definitely have an impact on our team,” Sarkisian said.