Steve Sarkisian’s lack of confidence in Texas’ QB room is concerning

A couple of weeks into the start of spring ball on the Forty Acres, the quarterback competition is still dominating the headlines for second-year head coach Steve Sarkisian and the Texas football team. As the former Ohio State Buckeyes freshman transfer quarterback and former elite five-star recruit Quinn Ewers dukes it out with rising junior Hudson Card to try and gain a foothold to win the starting job this fall, it’s hard to get a consistent picture of who has the edge.

Yet, it is becoming pretty clear that Sark and the Longhorns staff aren’t thrilled about the consistency of which either quarterback is performing in spring practice and the scrimmages that have taken place in the last couple of weeks. The tone surrounding the quarterback battle conversation right now tends to be one that emphasizes patience and growth.

I keep emphasizing that patience must win the day with the quarterback battle. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that we’d like to see more progress from at least one player in this quarterback room at this point of the offseason.

There are issues that both Card and Ewers are facing here, though. The fact that we’re still seeing similar struggles from Card as last offseason isn’t a great sign. While it does sound like Card is becoming more vocal in a necessary way in the locker room and in spring drills, he’s still trying to overcome some of the on-the-field issues he faced last fall.

Sark keeps mentioning how there are missed reads from Card occasionally while taking practice reps and in scrimmages. And the same could be said for Ewers.

But this is something that Card should be improving in. Card should be making big strides in terms of his progression reading the opposing defense and making the right throws at the right time. That should come especially easy for Card in practice before too long as the game reps will take this challenge of reading the opposing defense to a new level.

There was an instance when we heard about Card starting to look the part and holding an edge over Ewers in terms of his performance in spring practice and the scrimmages. But that conversation has quieted down a good bit in camp this week as Card hasn’t really been able to gain a firm foothold over Ewers quite yet.

Moreover, it sounds like there are some inconsistencies coming from Ewers in a number of areas from his performance in spring practice thus far. There are days when Ewers is throwing multiple interceptions and making multiple bad reads.

It is a bit concerning that Texas football HC Steve Sarkisian is lacking consistent confidence in Quinn Ewers and Hudson Card

Sark has also mentioned how some of the misreads and turnovers tend to “wear” on Ewers a good bit, which isn’t surprising.

Yet, Ewers will need to show that he can move past these mistakes and make the proper strides in practice to really prove he can effectively take the reigns of this offense this coming season.

It sounds like Ewers and Card are dealing with some similar struggles in spring ball. The competition might help them learn from each other and make the necessary progressions in camp faster than they would otherwise.

But the tone of the quarterback competition at this point of the offseason sounds pretty similar to last offseason when Texas was figuring out whether Card or Casey Thompson should be the starter. And we all saw how that turned out last fall.

In order for Texas to make the necessary strides at the quarterback position this year, either Card or Ewers will have to step up and effectively take command of this offense. That means being able to at least go through the necessary progressions while getting practice reps at an effective rate.

Getting comfortable with the pace and tempo of the passing game in camp will get the entire offense in rhythm to be able to reach the next level in terms of balance and overall productivity this fall.

The quarterback competition will continue to be the dominant storyline of the offseason for the Longhorns. That is until Ewers can start to really emerge as “the guy” to lead this offense for Sark and the Longhorns heading into the fall.

Texas is now seven practices into spring camp as of April 6. That gives the Longhorns roughly another two and a half weeks of spring practice. Then, Texas is set to take part in the spring football game on April 23 at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.