3 Texas football players bound to be future 1st round NFL Draft picks

Quinn Ewers, QB

It goes without saying that the former top-rated recruit in the nation and breakout redshirt freshman quarterback Quinn Ewers has the arm talent to eventually be the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft. Ewers just has to prove it in the next year and a half or so.

The 6-foot-3 and 205-pound Southlake, TX, native is showing his impressive arm talent off right away as Texas’ starting quarterback this season. Ewers was making high-level throws all over the field for Texas before he was injured near the end of the first quarter against Alabama on Sep. 10 and against the Oklahoma Sooners in the Red River Rivalry game on Oct. 8.

Ewers is just able to make throws in the pocket and off-schedule that most quarterbacks couldn’t dream of on deep and intermediate routes. The ability to hit really any “blade of grass on the field” as his former high school head coach would say is something that opens up Sark’s offense to a different degree than with Hudson Card and/or Casey Thompson in the last year and a half.

The arm talent was never a question with Ewers. It was his ability to process the playbook and confidently go through his progressions that some scouts and media personalities were mentioning as potential concerns for Ewers this fall.

But Ewers has put those “potential concerns’ to bed in the first couple of full starts of his collegiate career. He’s making throws with his feet planted and on the move which shows excellent timing and awareness that goes beyond his experience level.

The only issue I would note is the occasional overconfidence in Ewers’ arm talent, which can result in him fitting the ball into too tight of windows, letting opposing defenses come away with the pick. But that should improve over time.

It is anticipated that Ewers will spend two seasons at Texas before declaring early for the NFL Draft. And Ewers is already showing the tools of a potential top-five or top-three pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.