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Quinn "La Joya" Ewers - The Man The Myth The Mullet

Coach pop a bitch

By Coach pop a bitch
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10 hours ago, UDontKnow said:

I generally agree with most of your post. But I wonder about Quinn declaring for the NFL next season. 

IMO, he would likely need a Heisman-like season to make going to the NFL worth it. Basically he needs to be a projected 1st round pick, otherwise it probably isn't worth it (from a financial standpoint). I could see a possible scenario where coming back to play in the 2024 season benefits Ewers.

The NFL doesn't need to see much to to make the excuse to draft a physically talented QB in the first round. They will likely fall over themselves if he stays healthy, puts up 25 TDS, keeps his ONTs low, and improves his efficiency rating 10 points to get closer to 150.

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 47229

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12 hours ago, UDontKnow said:

IMO, he would likely need a Heisman-like season to make going to the NFL worth it. Basically he needs to be a projected 1st round pick, 

I'm not sure what you mean by "Heisman-like" season, but I can totally see him (a) getting better (b) not going to NYC and (c) being a first round pick.  QB potential is a drug for NFL GMs.

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LTtxfan

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Quinn Ewers' comfort zone

Ian Boyd•about 5 hours

Texas fans saw a different Quinn Ewers in the Alamo Bowl against Washington. It was his third game with a high total of attempted passes (47), previously matched only by the Oklahoma State (49) and TCU (39) games where his completion percentage was considerably lower and his turnovers up.

Texas couldn’t get the win this time, but if they’d had anything close to the defensive dominance of the TCU game or the Bijan Robinson run game of the OSU road trip, Ewers’ performance would have been enough for a victory.

Surely an extra week of bowl practices was a boost to Ewers’ game and the high number of attempts was partly a reflection of Texas’ need for scoring after getting behind. It was also a reflection of Texas’ need for both the bowl game and the upcoming 2023 season to reconfigure the offense around its younger talents after the departure of Bijan.

I believe what we saw against Washington will prove to be a preview for how a Quinn Ewers-focused offense looks in contrast to the Bijan offense of 2022.

The Bijan Robinson offense

First let’s give a quick primer on the Bijan Robinson offense, how it worked, and how it didn’t.  The Bijan offense was designed to apply stress to two areas of the field. Across an extended front, with extra gaps created by double tight end sets, sometimes including offensive tackle Andrej Karic as one of those tight ends, and then deep down the field.

Bijan could threaten any and every gap up front with his ability to cut and bounce runs while theoretically at least, Xavier Worthy’s speed to win down the field combined with Ewers’ powerful arm could attack the deep field on play-action.

It’s not uncommon for smashmouth spread teams built around RPOs and play-action to utilize a blocking-focused tight end. The player in such an offense inevitably spends most of his time run blocking on RPOs or pass blocking for play-action, so his ability to threaten the defense as a receiver is a negligible concern.

If the defense assigned a safety to him in man coverage then the safety might be pulled down to help fit the run and sit in the box, to the detriment of the passing game, but he couldn’t aggressively sit in the box AND play deep routes by a receiver at the same time.

Texas took that reasoning to its logical end point. If the goal was to attack deep down the field or along the front, then one of the tight ends might as well be an offensive linemen. If defenses overplayed him with a safety how much advantage could they really draw relative to Texas gaining a plus blocker in the box?

The only essential point was that Texas be able to attack down the field and apply stress deep where a safety tracking a sixth offensive lineman couldn’t help. This proved to be the issue.

When defenses played single-deep safety coverage and devoted a safety to the deep post route, Ewers showed great ability to hit deep crossers underneath the post safety. However when teams like TCU or OSU played quarters coverage and sat their safeties on the hash marks to close on the run and only hope to bail late to stop the post…Texas had a problem. They couldn’t hit the post.

Ewers struggled to find the range on Worthy’s patterns when he’d win deep down the field behind quarters safeties, or else he’d hit him reasonably well but Worthy would fail to adjust to the ball and miss the catch. Some fans grew frustrated with one or the other, each had their failings.

The upshot was Texas couldn’t consistently apply the deep stress needed to complement Bijan’s ability to run on even an 8-man front. Frustrating, but that’s done now and we’re on to a new era.

The Quinn Ewers offense

At Southlake Carroll, Ewers’ specialty was the comeback and stop route. He could zip in comebacks to receivers on the far hash or even the far numbers and there wasn’t a whole lot anyone could do about it.

Until the Alamo Bowl Texas didn’t show any great interest in utilizing this skill and Ewers’ command of the greater dropback passing game simply wasn’t there. Now that he’s coming along there’s more than one way to stretch the field. As Greg Davis would tell you, horizontalism can present problems as well.

The trick to horizontalism, stretching the field laterally rather than just vertically, is you need multiple receiving threats on the field attacking the seams and flooding underneath zones. Greg Davis rarely used the two-back, play-action sets of the modern spread but loved 11 personnel formations with an inline tight end positioned with an emphasis on attacking the seams and not serving as a move blocker in the run game.

In the Alamo Bowl, Texas showed a similar affinity for those sets. They routinely lined up in formations with Ja’Tavion Sanders either inline as a tight end, flexed out and on the line, or “in the backfield” but clear of an offensive lineman so he still had a vertical path down the field.

Screen-Shot-2023-01-03-at-10.17.58-AM-76

From this alignment, Texas could still run split zone or counter and have Sanders work across the formation to block on the other side, but he could also push up the seam without first having to run in a circle around another big body.

With four receivers aligned wide enough to push up the field immediately at the snap, Texas could create a lot more horizontal spread stress. There’s more than one way to take advantage of a strong arm at quarterback or speed at receiver.

Worthy would drop one of these wide open comebacks in the second half as he appeared to start to lose focus, but you can see how comfortable and easy this was for Texas to attack in this fashion. Spread spacing and numbers make obvious sense to Ewers and he showed a lot of comfort making quick reads and accurate tosses underneath into space which will only increase with more reps and experience.

Adjusting in 2023

A more horizontal spread style could serve two purposes for Texas in 2023. First, it’s clearly more comfortable for Ewers. He has two major skills which aren’t as apparent in a Mac Jones-style, deep threat system but which readily manifest in the spread. First, his knack for hitting slants, outs, and stop routes underneath when the offense successfully spreads out defenders and creates space underneath.

Secondly, his ability to do work off-schedule thanks to underrated athleticism and the ability to throw off platform.

These examples show Ewers’ Mahomes-ish quality for zipping the ball around on the move. It’s harder to make the most of this capacity in the max protection sets with six linemen on the field and a condensed field than with a spread field with multiple outlets or players within closer range working open.

This style also better utilizes two of Texas’ key players, Sanders and whomever plays in the slot. You don’t consistently get a slot when you play with two tight ends, but Texas has multiple players in the receiving room who often do their best work in the slot. Meanwhile Sanders is a nightmare flexed wide in a way he can’t be if lined up in the backfield behind an offensive lineman or another tight end like a fullback.

Both Ja’Tavion Sanders and Quinn Ewers are special talents and they should be deadly working together along with whatever Texas can assemble at receiver around them between returning players, portal additions, and incoming freshman.

Thus far the Ewers story has borne out in a similar fashion to the Garrett Gilbert era. Theoretically it made sense to put Gilbert’s cannon arm to work in more of a pro-style construct with a downhill run game and an absolute burner in Marquise Goodwin. In practice, Texas didn’t have a power run game and Gilbert didn’t have familiarity or comfort in that style having played in the spread at Lake Travis. Texas did have a power run game in 2022 and might have another good one in 2023, but Ewers’ comfort and upside is more apparent in a spread than a play-action oriented system.

If Texas can continue to evolve to more of a spread approach which makes the most of Sanders’ receiving ability and Ewers’ ability to zip the ball around the field, this story could end on a much happier note.

 

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deft

deft 7060

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I'm not sure what you mean by "Heisman-like" season, but I can totally see him (a) getting better (b) not going to NYC and © being a first round pick.  QB potential is a drug for NFL GMs.

So QE to the browns as a #1 pick. Dammit.
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  • 3 weeks later...
C-Man

C-Man 27789

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10 minutes ago, Longboard Horn said:

Exactly this. Arch will do the smart thing and redshirt for 2023. Maalik will be healthy and ready to go. Can't wait to see him in the spring game. 

Depending on how Arch looks this spring and summer, I could see a situation where Arch might play in less than four games to get a taste at this level but I would think in a perfect scenario, Quinn is good/healthy enough that QB2 only plays in mop-up duty.

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C-Man

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12 minutes ago, tbone_ said:

 


So not just chunking bombs to no one all game again? Cool.

 

 

8 minutes ago, Revolution512 said:

Let’s hope he’s putting in the work. If he matures, Texas can win the league. 

Both of these things. I thought QE was much more efficient with the short passing game in the Alamo Bowl. That seemed to make more sense than bomb after bomb to a disinterested Xavier Worthy. I also fully expect QE's receiver corps to be monumentally better than it was in 2022 with Cook, Mitchell, Neyor and Moore joining the group. If QE can't be successful with that collection, he ain't the guy and it's time to accelerate Arch's timeline (if he's remotely ready). 

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Atticus

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It’s funny to see a guy that needs 2-3 years of work to become viable get touted by some as ready for a backup role after half a year of work. 
 

Maalik isn’t beating Arch for QB2. If he credibly competes with Arch for QB1 next year, then he’s probably transferring before ever playing a snap here. 
 

Ideally for us, he is competing with Trey Owens/2025 guy for 2026QB1 as a RSSr.

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Doc Daneeka

Doc Daneeka 6793

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On 1/24/2023 at 9:19 AM, C-Man said:

Depending on how Arch looks this spring and summer, I could see a situation where Arch might play in less than four games to get a taste at this level but I would think in a perfect scenario, Quinn is good/healthy enough that QB2 only plays in mop-up duty.

Not sure what the downside would be there as long as Maalik gets real snaps running the real offense before it happens. 

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