Ohio State: Quinn Ewers may mark a new era for QB’s at OSU

Texas high school quarterback prospect Quinn Ewers de-committed from the University of Texas and instead will attend Ohio State next fall.

Justin Fields in the middle of a Heisman Trophy campaign. Despite his pro struggles, Dwayne Haskins was a top-12 NFL Draft pick. Former No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, Joe Burrows, graduated from Ohio State in three years with a degree in consumer and family financial services. Now, highly touted QB Quinn Ewers, a 6-foot-3, 205-pound prospect from Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas, will enroll into Ohio State in 2022 hoping to follow his predecessor’s lead in establishing OSU as a quarterback factory.

The commitment of Ewers, who was committed to Texas, comes at a time when the university is seeing unprecedented success at its quarterback position. For years the school got by with exceptional running backs and mediocre quarterbacks. Names like Craig Krenzel, Joe Germain, Cardale Jones, Braxton Miller, and others all played well in the scarlet and grey, but none were able to make it to the next level as a quarterback. Jones played some in the XFL, and Braxton Miller tried to follow the path of another OSU quarterback, Terrell Pryor, and switch to a receiver in the NFL but that never materialized for him.

With the success of Haskins, Fields, and Burrow, OSU looks like they’re about to become the next great quarterback factory. Sure, some will argue that Fields hasn’t even left OSU yet and we don’t know what he’ll be yet, and that’s a fair argument. Others will point out that Haskins will more than likely be moved this offseason by Washington after just drafting him in 2019, and others will say that Burrow busted out at LSU after graduating from OSU so he shouldn’t count. Those are all fair arguments.

They also don’t matter, when you consider where OSU was at with their QB expectations just a decade ago. Now they’re producing first-round players, when before they were producing athletes that might stick around for a few years.

Haskins, Burrow, and Field were all talent that was highly touted coming out of high school, and will more than likely all end up being first-round picks. Considering there was a time when J.T. Barrett and Todd Boeckman were among the top signal-callers in school history, it’s not at all hard to fathom that this is a new era in Ohio State history and the addition of Ewers helps justify that feeling.

For Ewers to succeed in a post-Fields era, he’ll have to compete with freshmen quarterbacks C.J. Stroud, Jack Miller, and incoming 2021 freshmen Kyle McCord. Ewers will have plenty of time to get better before then, as he’s not expected to join the college until the fall of 2022.