ESPN critical of volatility of the Texas football QB room

The quarterback room for the Texas football program will be a huge looming topic of discussion this fall around the Forty Acres. As second-year head coach Steve Sarkisian and quarterbacks coach AJ Milwee decide on a starter for Week 1 this fall, fans are wanting to see who steps up between former Ohio State freshman transfer Quinn Ewers and junior Hudson Card.

Sark and the Longhorns staff had a looming quarterback competition during spring ball, which obviously didn’t yield an answer as to who the starter will be this fall. The competition will carry into fall camp, with a decision likely to be made at least a couple of weeks before the regular season opener on Sep. 3 against Louisiana-Monroe.

Moreover, there’s no doubting the potential that lies in this quarterback room for the Longhorns. Texas definitely has one of the most talented quarterback rooms in the Big 12. The issue with this quarterback lies within the lack of proven starting experience, not pure talent.

And this is why some are critical of the outlook for the Texas offense this fall and are cautiously optimistic about the quarterback room. That is what you would have to classify the outlook from David Hale of ESPN as from a recent piece that was published in the last week, which placed each quarterback situation into different tiers around the college football landscape.

Texas was placed in the fifth tier on this list, which was classified in the “hot right now” group. Other quarterback situations included in this tier were that of the Ole Miss Rebels, Baylor Bears, and Florida Gators, among a couple of others.

ESPN critical of the uncertainty for the Texas football QB situation between Quinn Ewers and Hudson Card

Here’s more on what this piece from ESPN’s Hale had to say on the Texas quarterback situation.

"Then there’s the battle at Texas, which features one of the highest-profile recruits in recent years (Ewers) and the guy who started the Longhorns’ opener last year before going down with an injury (Card). Both have tremendous upside, and both will surely be at the forefront of a truly astounding number of “Texas is back” jokes before the 2022 season ends (with a loss to Indiana in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl)."

This seems to be a fair classification of the Longhorns quarterback situation, given the potential that Ewers and Card bring to the table, despite the lack of proven starting experience. The issue I see with this is the fact that Texas was placed in a group with other quarterbacks that might not have as high of a ceiling such as Washington State’s Cameron Ward and Baylor’s Blake Shapen.

Ewers has a much higher ceiling than either one of those quarterbacks. In fact, really the only quarterback in this tier that could compete with Ewers in terms of the overall ceiling this fall is Ole Miss’s Jaxson Dart. Florida’s Anthony Richardson has a high ceiling, but it’s hard to tell how he’ll adjust in the first year under new head coach Billy Napier.

Also, you’d have to say that even Card has a higher ceiling at the quarterback position for Texas this fall than the likes of Wazzu’s Ward and Baylor’s Shapen.

From the way ESPN is classifying the Texas quarterback situation, among other teams that have looming quarterback battles this offseason, it looks like they are cautious on ranking any of these rooms that high on the tier list. In fact, Texas’ quarterback situation was rated in the highest tier among any school that has a looming competition heading into the fall.

With the more likely scenario this fall for the Longhorns looking like Ewers will be the Week 1 starter, the ceiling is very high for what Texas can do at the quarterback position in 2022. As one of the most highly-touted recruits in the last two decades, Ewers has the potential to take this offense to new heights if he comes even close to his ceiling as a starter this fall.