Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers will enter the 2025 NFL Draft, he announced on social media Wednesday.
“These past three years have been some of the best years I could’ve imagined,” Ewers said in a video on X. “I’m truly thankful for the opportunity to play football in my home state at the best university in the world. … With prayer and careful consideration, I’m officially declaring for the NFL Draft.”
— Quinn Ewers (@QuinnEwers) January 15, 2025
The decision was largely expected after Ewers told ESPN last week that he didn’t plan to return to college football in 2025. His declaration will kick off a fascinating pre-draft process, as NFL scouts’ opinions about Ewers’ draft stock vary greatly.
Ewers, a fourth-year junior, is not listed among the draft’s top 50 prospects in The Athletic’s Dane Brugler’s Big Board, and Brugler said in December that scouts’ grades of Ewers ranged from the second to the fourth round. But because this quarterback class is not considered deep, Brugler said it wouldn’t be shocking to see Ewers go on the higher end of that spectrum and that he’ll have opportunities to help himself in the pre-draft process.
During his three-year Texas career, Ewers went 27-9 as a starter and led the Longhorns to two consecutive trips to the College Football Playoff semifinals. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound Ewers threw for 9,128 yards, 68 touchdowns and 24 interceptions with a 64.9 percent completion rate and averaged 8 yards per attempt in his 36 starts.
Though the on-field results were largely positive and he helped lift Texas football back to national prominence, Ewers was heavily scrutinized by fans and observers for inconsistent play. He was the No. 1 high school recruit in his class, with a perfect 1.000 rating from 247Sports, which brought a heap of expectations with his college career.
Originally a Class of 2022 recruit, he reclassified and enrolled at Ohio State in August 2021 to take advantage of lucrative name, image and likeness deals he couldn’t partake in as a high school athlete under Texas state law. After one semester and just two snaps with the Buckeyes, Ewers transferred back to his home state and joined the Longhorns, a program he rooted for growing up and originally committed to in 2020.
GO DEEPER
Before Quinn Ewers was Texas’ QB1, he was a fascinating freshman at Ohio State
He became the starter in 2022, his first season at Texas, leading the Longhorns to 8-5, a three-win improvement from the previous season. The Longhorns went 12-2 in 2023 to win the Big 12 and finished 13-3 this season, their first in the SEC, with Ewers leading the way.
Ewers enjoyed impressive peaks at Texas, leading the Longhorns to a road win over Alabama in 2023 and a win over defending national champion Michigan in 2024 at the Big House. But the Ewers experience also included mid-game lulls and inaccuracy on downfield throws. Ewers completed 34.4 percent of his pass attempts of 20 or more air yards in his last three seasons, which ranks 78th nationally among quarterbacks with at least 500 pass attempts in that period, according to TruMedia.
The scrutiny became even greater when Arch Manning, also a No. 1 recruit, signed with the Longhorns before the 2023 season. Because of Manning’s size, skill set and NFL bloodlines, intense curiosity surrounded him. But Texas coach Steve Sarkisian stuck with Ewers as the starter. Manning was the third-string quarterback in 2023 but moved into the backup role in 2024, starting two games and finishing another when Ewers suffered a strained oblique.
The oblique strain marked one of several injuries Ewers endured in his Texas career. He missed three games in 2022 because of a clavicle injury and two games in 2023 with an AC joint sprain in his throwing shoulder. In addition to his oblique injury in 2024, he also suffered an ankle injury in a November win over Kentucky but played through it the rest of the season.
Reports swirled throughout the Longhorns’ Playoff run that teams would be interested in Ewers if he decided to stay in school one more year and transfer. On3 reported that one team was prepared to offer Ewers $6 million. But Ewers wanted to go pro, a possibility that existed after the 2023 season. He opted to return in 2024 after learning that quarterbacks who started 25 or more games in college tend to have more success in the NFL.
“I’m super proud of Quinn,” Sarkisian said Friday after the loss to Ohio State. “He’s taught me a lot, probably unknowingly to him, because what he went through every year dealing with injury, what he goes through where I don’t know if he’d ever live up to the standards of what everybody thinks he’s supposed to be.
“But at the end of the day, all he did was show up every day and work and be a great leader and be a great teammate. … Maybe outside of the first two games, I don’t think he played a game this year 100 percent healthy. And he fought through everything. Never complained about it one time. And I think that’s why he has so much respect from his teammates.”
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(Photo: Alex Slitz / Getty Images)
