Golden: Smart money is on Quinn Ewers to be named Texas football starter — sooner or later

Texas' quarterback competition gives us something to talk about, but deep down, don't we already know who'll get the season-opening start Sept. 3 against Louisiana-Monroe?

Sure we do.

The smart money is on Quinn Ewers.

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Hudson Card will give a spirited push to open as the starter for a second straight season, but will fall predictably short because it’s Ewers’ job to win or lose. Sorry, Hudson, but it was in the cards when Ewers announced he was leaving Ohio State to return to his home state.

Don’t buy too much into what you see in Saturday’s Orange-White spring game because the goal isn’t to show fans which quarterback has a legitimate leg up in the competition, simply to get through one evening without a major injury. It’s April, after all.

Coach Steve Sarkisian has done a fine job of divvying up the reps between the two, but Ewers has a bigger arm, a bigger upside and, yes, a bigger price tag than Card, who made two starts last season before giving way to Casey Thompson.

By the way, this is no criticism of Card, a fine young man who has the makings of a good college quarterback if he ever figures out the subtleties of mastering a huddle and being the face of a program.

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I doubt it ever happens in Austin. Sure, he can sit around for another two years for Ewers to possibly leave early for the pros, but is he really prepared to spend four seasons carrying around a clipboard when he could be throwing darts somewhere else?

To his credit, Sarkisian has been saying and doing all the right things this spring and his quarterbacks are responding. He reported that they both completed over 70% of their passes in the last scrimmage even if there were some initial concerns about ball security. He also was complimentary of their rapport with teammates and their ability to lead.

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He has also mixed in some film study, including a YouTube clip of his former Atlanta Falcons pupil Matt Ryan yelling at future Hall of Fame wideout Julio Jones to get set before the snap, in pretty colorful language. Message being, oftentimes a real boss has to get after his teammates for the team to reach the desired result. Sark is instilling the importance of leadership in these quarterbacks in the months before one of them takes that first real snap.

Technically, he's got till the season opener to make any decisions if he chooses to wait that long, but there can only be one. When asked about the decision facing his coach, Card didn’t give us much, which is his way. He keeps it low key with the media and that’s fine.

"Ultimately, Sark's the master, and he knows how to handle these situations,” Card said.

Ewers is the guy, barring a major injury. My sincere apologies if this blows your cherubic view of today’s college football environment, but Texas and/or people who love Longhorns football surely put their money where their mouth was and made a presentation that was too good for him to pass up. The one-time UT commit who signed with Ohio State is finally at Texas.

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“There was a little obstacle in between, but I ended up here and I'm very thankful for all the opportunities God has given me,” Ewers said. “I'm just excited to be back in the home state."

Ewers had other suitors, but the Horns were the pick. Color me shocked if he’s sitting on the bench for the first snap this fall.

Sark has done a great job of keeping both signal callers engaged because his goal is to make sure they're both ready for the opener. He has to get both to the fall and have them thinking this thing is neck and neck, even if it isn’t.

The worst-case scenario is the runner-up entertaining the dreaded P-word and Texas opening up with a hobbled Maalik Murphy as the freshman backup. Sark is walking a fine line, as is most every other coach in America with a similar dilemma.

It will be Ewers, who famously skipped his senior year at Southlake Carroll to enroll early at Ohio State only to find himself running fourth string, three spots behind freshman star C.J. Stroud. We all knew he wasn’t going to sit for two more years to have a chance to start in Columbus. Quarterbacks rarely wait around these days.

Enter Texas. After last season’s 5-7 disaster, the Horns are hell-bent on winning again, and if that means paying top dollar to make it happen, then so be it. After all, schools all over the country are cutting fat checks for the top stars.

So why not the Horns?

Besides, if deep-pocketed alumni can team up to pay every offensive lineman on scholarship $50,000 just to wear a burnt orange jersey, then surely there are mechanisms in place to make sure the most important player on the field is well compensated, better yet, to make sure the program has a quarterback the coaches believe can lead this team to special places.

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The big boys up front won't really matter if the dude holding the football on every play can’t get it done. So it's incumbent on a coach to find a guy who can spin it with the best of them and deliver on Saturdays.

And that’s a huge reason why Ewers is here. He has an NFL dream and the people who love Texas have undoubtedly pushed some NIL coin his way as they have for Card. In Ewers’ case, he reportedly signed a three-year, $1.4 million endorsement deal with GT Sports Marketing last August before suiting up for the Buckeyes. He had two other deals already in place and there had to be incentives to come back home.

We're living in a new era of college sports where the stars and their representatives can negotiate and sign with the highest bidder. Good for those players. It’s been a long time coming.

Now, Ewers and other athletes like him control their own careers and are free to come and go as they please. Shoot, college basketball’s reigning national player of the year — Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe — will reportedly earn more than $2 million in NIL money after announcing he'll return for another season. Ironically, he isn't even considered a great pro prospect. But he's getting paid.

Ewers' decision to move to Columbus and skip a year of high school ball came during a time when Texas was one of three states that wasn't allowing high school athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness. Ohio had NIL allowances and you can best believe the Ewers family knew it.

Ewers is only 19 and has already made more money before throwing a single college pass than many of his teammates will see in a lifetime. Sixteen years after Vince Young led Texas to its first national championship in 35 years, Ewers is the beneficiary of a system that has allowed amateur athletes to not only profit from popularity, but also weaponize the transfer portal to change their surroundings faster than you can say, “Please sign here.”

When Kirk Bohls asked Ewers last week if he had any other NIL deals in the works, Ewers answered, “That’s kind of personal.” Yep, kind of like the relationship between Texas football and its championship starved fan base.

Ewers' money is his business, but his off-the-field interests will eventually become public if those entities are smart enough to capitalize on this window of opportunity. These people love Texas football, but they also love the almighty dollar.

They are obviously making a sizable investment in Ewers and the program, so why wouldn't they take full advantage and maximize their earning potential? It's the American way.

So when you watch Saturday's glorified practice, don’t be shocked if each quarterback gets the same amount of reps with the 1s and the 2s. Look for a couple of "woo" throws from Ewers and an improved deep ball from Card. Afterward, Sark will tell us how close the competition has been during the spring and that he's in no hurry to name a starter.

One more word of advice. When your buddies start throwing around the two most discussed names on the roster, make sure to put your money on Ewers to start.

Just like Texas has.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Quinn Ewers is the odds-on favorite to start at QB for Texas football