ESPN predicts Texas football QB Quinn Ewers wins starting job

Ahead of the 2022 season, a lot of the focus for second-year head coach Steve Sarkisian and the Texas football program will remain on the looming quarterback competition. Sark and quarterbacks coach AJ Milwee are seeing rising junior Hudson Card and the former Ohio State Buckeyes freshman transfer Quinn Ewers duke it out for the starting job this offseason.

And while most Longhorns fans and those around the college football media landscape presume that Ewers will win the starting quarterback job for Week 1 over Card, Sark and this staff likely won’t officially announce anything until some point during fall camp. That technically still keeps the competition open between Card and Ewers.

Given how the non-conference schedule stacks up for the Longhorns this season, we could actually see both quarterbacks getting significant reps early on.

Yet, most media outlets aren’t shying away from predicting who they think the starting quarterback will be for the Longhorns in Week 1. ESPN writer Adam Rittenberg joined the list of college football writers/reports/analysts/etc. that are predicting the quarterback competition for the Longhorns between Ewers and Card.

ESPN writer tabs Quinn Ewers as the Week 1 starter for Texas football

Rittenberg had an ESPN published on May 25 (insider content) that predicts Ewers over Card as Texas’ starting quarterback for Week 1 of the upcoming season. This doesn’t come as a huge surprise, but it does seem like ESPN is buying into at least some of the hype that Ewers brings to the table this year.

Granted, this piece does mention that Rittenberg isn’t “ready to anoint Ewers as a Heisman Trophy contender or the next Trevor Lawrence”. There is clearly a limit to the hype that Rittenberg is willing to buy into for Ewers at this moment.

And that is a fair point given that Longhorns fans shouldn’t be expecting Ewers to be a Heisman contender and/or finalist right away this fall.

Rittenberg does also dig into the fact that we could see both Ewers and Card getting significant reps for Sark and the Longhorns in the regular season opener against Louisiana-Monroe on Sep. 3. If Texas is able to jump out to a big early lead against Louisiana-Monroe in the opener, it wouldn’t be shocking at all to see both Ewers and Card get their chance to lead the offense.

Texas got this quarterback competition between Ewers and Card underway in spring camp over the last couple of months. Sark and the Longhorns will need to have the quarterback situation figured out before this team faces the defending National Champion runner-up Alabama Crimson Tide at home in Week 2, specifically on Sep. 10.