Texas Football: 4 overreactions after the underwhelming Alamo Bowl loss

Quinn Ewers will be on track to be a dark horse Heisman contender in 2023

This actually falls more into the category of a way-too-early bold prediction for the 2023 season. But considering we just saw Ewers play one of the best games of his true freshman campaign in a tough spot in the Alamo Bowl loss to Washington, I still feel it is right to give him the props he deserves for a solid performance.

Ewers finished up this game with a career-high 31 completions on 47 passing attempts, good for a career-best 369 passing yards, one passing touchdown, and no interceptions. He also made a few things happen with his legs, including picking up a key first down on a 10+ yard scramble in the second half.

All in all, I thought this was one of the most complete performances of the season from Ewers. He showed a lot more composure in the pocket and was on the same page a lot more consistently with his wideouts, especially in the short and intermediate passing game.

It must be said that Ewers did more than enough for Texas to come away with the win. Texas has beaten other teams while Ewers was off. This feels a little bit like a wasted performance from the former five-star recruit.

On the bright side, though, one of the major storylines heading into the Alamo Bowl was needing to see Ewers make some necessary strides in the passing game. And he was able to do just that as this was the best version of Ewers of any game in the second half of the season.

If Ewers is able to continue to improve next offseason at a similar rate to his progressions throughout bowl practice in the last few weeks, I’m really excited about what he can do in this offense in 2023. A more complete and consistent version of Ewers back in the pocket is a quarterback that can be a dark horse Heisman contender next fall.