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1st & 10: QB leadership matters for Steve Sarkisian and Quinn Ewers has brought it during camp

Joe Cookby:Joe Cook•08/07/24•

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Quinn Ewers
Quinn Ewers (Will Gallagher/Inside Texas)

Throughout the offseason and even into preseason camp, we’ve gathered reports from sources and even statements from Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian himself that indicate Quinn Ewers is more comfortable in his third year in the offense. That has Ewers not just as a betting favorite, but also as one of On3’s favorites to win the third Heisman in the history of Longhorn football.

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This is an important year for Ewers. It’s one he decided to come back for as part of slowing down and breathing for maybe the first time in five years. He would have been picked early in the 2024 NFL Draft had he left, but he wanted to further cement his legacy as a Longhorn and his status as a prospective first-rounder.

So it’s encouraging for Texas fans that on Monday, Sarkisian doted on Ewers’ intangibles when asked what has impressed him most about his third-year quarterback.

“I think his leadership for sure,” Sarkisian said. “This team looks to him and how he goes. That takes on a different responsibility from that perspective in that he doesn’t get to have that day, even when he’s not feeling his best or maybe he’s a little fatigued, he’s still got to be the guy that drives the temperature of that offense and fuels that offense. That’s a little bit new for him to some degree.”

Ewers was 272-for-394 last year for 3479 yards and 22 touchdowns over six interceptions in 2023. He also rushed for five scores.

Sarkisian’s mention of Ewers’ improved leadership isn’t meant to illustrate that Ewers is there as a quarterback. There’s always room for improvement for quarterbacks in making reads, ball placement, and overall durability. Ewers has missed multiple games each of the last few years, after all.

But improvement in the area where he needed the most growth was at the forefront of Sark’s mind. Texas lost 11 players to the NFL draft plus a few more who were picked up as undrafted free agents. Those great players were also the Longhorns’ leaders.

That left a leadership — void isn’t the right word — shortage of sorts on the Longhorn offense.

Ewers has restocked it.

“There isn’t a (Jordan Whittington),” Sarkisian said. “There isn’t a (Ja’Tavion) Sanders. There isn’t a Bijan (Robinson) or a Roschon (Johnson) from two years ago that were those kind of catalysts. Now that’s him, and I think he’s assumed that responsibility.”

To be certain, Ewers isn’t a finished product in this regard. Quarterbacks rarely are.

“Yet, it’s still a challenge,” Sarkisian said. “We had to get him out of his comfort zone to go into a new space and he was more than willing to do that. I think it’s showing. Like anything, there’s moments we have to remind him where this is that time, this is what you’re talking about.”

But despite that challenge, leadership was still the first area Sarkisian chose to acknowledge when speaking about the progress his quarterback has made.

“To me, that’s been the glaring, most biggest difference,” Sarkisian said.

1: Some takeaways at each position. It’s been very nice to cover a program without a quarterback ‘controversy’ despite what the national media might want to know about the player who has long been established as Texas’ backup. That in mind, Sarkisian has said he wants to get Arch Manning into games. But he’s not going to force the issue.

2: With CJ Baxter dinged up at yesterday’s first fully-padded practice, it shows just how important Tashard Choice‘s recruiting acumen is. That room has been stocked with talent for some time, and Texas could need more of that talent than originally anticipated.

The player who might see a greater share of work now that Baxter is nursing a knee issue? Jaydon Blue.

Choice didn’t bring Blue to Texas. Stan Drayton was the RBs coach that earned the commitment from the Klein Cain star. That said, Choice and Sarkisian deserve credit in another way for how Blue has fared in the running back room.

Blue did not play during his senior year of high school. Yet Sarkisian and Choice did not give up on Blue. After 15 carries in his freshman year, Blue made the most of his 79 touches in 2023, scoring four touchdowns and making plays in some of Texas’ most important late season games.

Work done Sarkisian and Choice to develop Blue into a “lightning” style back are worthy of a lot of praise.

3: My player comparison for Silas Bolden has long been Jakeem Grant. A 5-foot-7-ish, 160-ish pounder like Bolden, Grant tallied multiple 700-plus yard seasons with Texas Tech in Kliff Kingsbury‘s offense before embarking on a NFL career. Grant didn’t let size limit what he could do, as the Longhorns found out during a loss to the Red Raiders in 2015. Bolden’s been working at the boundary wideout position, though he’s a player likely to be moved all over the place.

4: Gunnar Helm knows he has big shoes to fill with no Sanders on the team anymore. Speaking with the media on Tuesday, he understood he needed to become a better leader and feels as if he did just that.

Helm is the No. 1 at the spot but since coaches continue to speak about him glowingly, I’m very excited to hear how Juan Davis fares during these physical practices and in the Longhorns’ first scrimmage.

5: Andre Cojoe at the second-string right tackle spot has caught my eye. A player young for his grade and needing some physical development, he appears to be growing into his frame and is playing at a level Kyle Flood and the coaches want to see from a right tackle. It’s only year two for Cojoe but the fact that he’s made a spot for himself with the second line and stayed in it during the viewing portions of practice is a nice sign of what could come later in his career.

6: Barryn Sorrell was named to Bruce Feldman’s “Freaks List” on Tuesday, deservedly so. But it had me wondering what other Longhorns probably would have fit into the 100-man list of some of college football’s most impressive athletes.

The first player that came to mind was Jaray Bledsoe. Fighting for a spot in the regular rotation, the tremendous athlete at 6-foot-4, 290 pounds could see proper utilization in the pass-rush this year in specialty situations.

The entire EDGE room probably merits an honorable mention.

Kelvin Banks was my next choice after Bledsoe.

7: Liona Lefau‘s development was praised by Sarkisian, players, and IT sources alike in recent days.

One thing that always stood out to me about Lefau from his Kahuku (Hawaii) film is his ability to play in coverage. Teams on the islands aren’t running a bunch of single wing. Modern passing offenses are run by some of the best teams in Hawaii and Lefau’s film showed a penchant for being in the right place at the right time in pass coverage. That’s key for the Mike LB spot.

8: Jelani McDonald taking first-string reps at field safety during a recent practice is evidence of the development I’m not sure Blake Gideon gets enough credit for. That was a player who was a quarterback during his high school days. Now, he’s fighting to be one of the first defenders on the field in a secondary loaded with experience.

9: No Longhorn recently made the Jim Thorpe Award’s preseason watch list. I bet a few Longhorns earn Thorpe Player of the Week honors throughout the season and surge into a position to where at least one Texas player is a semifinalist.

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10: From what I’ve seen from the punters in brief viewing windows, Michael Kern sends better kicks downfield than the others he’s competing against.

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