Just five days before the college football season opener between Florida State and Georgia Tech in Week 0, the Associated Press released its 2024 Preseason College Football All-Americans, and while one name is a familiar one, the other is an exception for Texas Longhorns fans.
Junior left tackle Kelvin Banks was named preseason All-American honoree along with three other SEC offensive linemen as a member of the first team. Banks was a starter each of his first two years in college and is considered one of the top prospects for the 2025 NFL Draft. Banks was expected to be one of four tackles to earn second-team All-American honors, but one name Texas fans won’t see on the list is quarterback Quinn Ewers.
During the offseason, Ewers has been a hot topic, especially in the entertainment industry. He has been on the cover of the highly popular College Football 25 Game, signed a number of lucrative and high-profile NIL contracts, and even became “Fansville’s QB1” in a recent Dr. Pepper ad. Despite all that, Ewers did not make the first or second team, losing out to future rivals Carson Beck of Georgia and Dillon Gabriel, who transferred to Oregon after beating Texas in last year’s Red River Rivalry.
Ewers’ exclusion reminds Texas fans of an important lesson: Not everyone is talking about the Longhorns the way Austin fans are. Texas has a huge brand, perhaps the biggest in college football. That’s why players like Ewers and backup Arch Manning get all the contracts and media coverage. But just because Ewers is the most popular quarterback in college football right now doesn’t mean he’s the best.
2023 was an up-and-down season for Ewers, with injuries and odd performances that kept him out of the conversation among team members. The then-sophomore played in 12 of the team’s 14 games, with exceptional performances in the two most important games of the year against Alabama and Oklahoma State. Ewers had the ability to perform in big games and built a reputation as a quarterback, but was he really “ignored” behind Gabriel and Beck?
All three of those gunslingers led the preseason Associated Press top four teams, with Ohio State’s Will Howard being the only quarterback from a top-five team not finishing in the top five in BetMGM’s Heisman Trophy odds. Gabriel and Beck are tied for the best odds, and Ewers is tied for third with Alabama’s Jalen Milroe, which could be why they’re not on the list.
Purely statistically speaking, Ewers falls between the two All-American candidates. Among returning Power Five quarterbacks, only Gabriel, current Miami quarterback Cam Ward and Colorado’s Shedul Sanders have averaged more yards per game than Ewers. Gabriel and Ewers threw the same number of passes in 2023, but Ward and Sanders were a little less efficient on far more attempts, leading to better counting statistics.
In fact, Ewers ranks ahead of first-team recruit Beck in passing yards per game and touchdowns, but lags behind in most other categories: Beck has generally played more games in a tougher schedule, completed 3% more passes, completed 10% more passes and allowed 0.7 more yards per attempt, while Gabriel ranks ahead of Ewers in every other statistic.
Ewers seems on the same level as the two All-Americans, and Milroe is efficient and elusive in the running game but is a much worse passer than the other three at this point, but even if he is on the same level, it would be foolish to say he’s out of the running for the 2023 season.
Gabriel and Beck were more efficient, higher-volume quarterbacks who didn’t lead teams as far, but looking ahead to 2024, it’s easy to see both Georgia and Oregon finishing the season slower than the Longhorns. Ewers may not be on the preseason team, but he’ll need to rely more on his passing game and could be one of the Heisman Trophy frontrunners early in the year.
