Something Texas fans likely don’t want to think about when looking forward to 2022, but truly should, is the absurdly high expectations they have for young players.
With the most expectations being placed on the shoulders and mullet of quarterback Quinn Ewers, who is viewed as the prodigal son of Texas football. While Ewers is expected to lead the program to glory, his high school coach’s father and legendary Texas high school football coach, Todd Dodge, expressed his concern about him playing too soon.
In an interview with 247Sports’ Chip Brown, Dodge explained that Ewers will need time to adapt to the college game even with his year spent at Ohio State.
Here is what the seven-time winning state championship coach had to say:
“If a true freshman — and that’s what Quinn is, because Quinn didn’t pay his senior year in high school. He really hasn’t played any football at all since that state championship game about a year ago about right now. I believe that universities all across America are getting really fired up about true freshman. They’ve got to clam down a bit. It is not in the best interest of your football team if you are starting a true freshman. “
He continued, comparing his situation to that of Trevor Lawrence and Caleb Williams’ saying:
“I don’t care how good he is. You have the Trevor Lawrences of the world and the Tua (Tagovailoa)s of the world and then Caleb Williams came on, but nobody (at Texas) really followed Caleb after the Texas game. Caleb had his freshman moments too.”
The Longhorns do have one experienced quarterback on the roster in Hudson Card, and while Texas fans likely want to see Ewers by yesterday, it may be in the best interest if he gets time to learn and sit before playing.
It will be interesting to see how Sarkisian handles the quarterback situation in his second year as the head coach, because the way he handled it last year did not go smoothly by any means.