Texas Football: Where to go from here after Quinn Ewers decommitment

The worst has happened for the 2022 Texas football recruiting class after losing a commitment from 5-Star QB Quinn Ewers.

Well it happened. While it seemed like things couldn’t get much worse for fourth-year head coach Tom Herman and his staff on and off-the-field, they just did. The 2022 Texas football recruiting class lost a commitment from their biggest pledge in a long-time on the night of Oct. 28, from the elite five-star Southlake Carroll pro-style quarterback Quinn Ewers.

What the Longhorns are losing in Ewers is the nation’s No. 2 2022 high school prospect, and the top overall pro-style quarterback and prospect out of Texas (247Sports Composite). And the Top247 ranks him as the top 2022 high school prospect in the nation. After his decommitment from Texas, Ewers looks to now be trending toward landing with second-year head coach Ryan Day and the Ohio State Buckeyes.

If Ohio State manages to snag yet another five-star skill position prospect that looked to once be in the bag for the Longhorns out of the state of Texas, it will be an absolute disaster for Herman and his coaching staff. Granted it can’t get much worse than it already is.

And we can’t forget about what the Longhorns lost in their 2021 recruiting class, when the highly touted four-star Denton-Ryan athlete Billy Bowman Jr. decommitted within the last month. With both Ewers and Bowman Jr. gone, the Longhorns results on the recruiting trail are near officially decimated of late.

Texas couldn’t hold onto the commitment of Ewers for very long. He had only originally committed to Texas back in mid-August. That didn’t take long for him to consider other options. And he reportedly (Horns247 paid content) was talking with other top 2022 prospects about his plans to re-open his recruitment for a while now.

So with Ewers now out of the Longhorns 2022 class, is there any way for Herman and his coaching staff to pick up the pieces?

The quick answer to that question it seems would be a resounding no.

Texas is losing ground fast on the trail both with their 2021 and 2022 classes. Texas is now bounced from the top 10 in the national class rankings for both cycles. And there’s not a great way for Herman to proceed with either class at the moment.

There were other impacts that landing a commitment from Ewers had for the Longhorns 2021 class that now look to be pretty detrimental. Namely losing the commitment from four-star Katy-Tompkins dual-threat quarterback Jalen Milroe looks really bad now. Milroe is now committed to head coach Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide in their 2021 class.

About the next best thing for Herman to try to get at the quarterback position in the 2022 class would be four-star Junipero Serra pro-style quarterback Maalik Murphy. But the likes of Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon, and UCLA are hot on the trail of the California product.

Texas has only offered three quarterbacks for the 2022 cycle so far. There are likely to be a good number going out in the near future now so that Herman and the Longhorns don’t fall too far behind.

And all that they have at the quarterback position in the 2021 class is is three-star former Iowa State Cyclones commit and Austin High pro-style quarterback Charles Wright. Considering that Wright doesn’t even rank among the top 1,000 2021 high school prospects in the nation, only having his commitment in the next two classes doesn’t really inspire much confidence in among the fans.

If the results don’t pick up on the field soon for Herman and this Longhorns team, the pressure on the head coach’s shoulders will start to become insurmountable. He just lost one of the most important commitments in program history to his former employer.

Texas only has two commits left in their 2022 recruiting class. Those are from four-star Memorial cornerback Jaylon Guilbeau and four-star Lancaster wide receiver Phaizon Wilson. While there is a lot of time remaining in the 2022 recruiting cycle, it might already be time for Longhorns fans to hit the panic button after getting news like this.