Quinn Ewers was an incredible quarterback at Texas, one of the best in school history.

The Longhorns’ offense will be more dynamic without Ewers in 2025 and beyond.

Both things can be true.

Ewers leaves a complicated legacy behind at UT now that he’s likely going pro. At least, Ewers told ESPN that he doesn’t see himself playing college football in 2025. The Arch Manning era is set to begin in full when Texas opens the season at Ohio State on August 30.

Where should he rank? In the modern era, Vince Young is still first, followed by Colt McCoy in most fans’ eyes. Ewers should be ahead of other talented well-liked quarterbacks — think Chris Simms and Sam Ehlinger — because he won a conference title. Others can disagree, but a clear third behind Young and McCoy feels right.

Just like his jersey number. 

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Still, Ewers will forever wonder if he could have guided Texas to the national championship after an ill-fated goal-line sequence led to Ohio State’s 28-14 win in the College Football Playoffs.

For the second straight season, Texas’ national title hopes came down to the final play of a CFP semifinal loss. Texas lost to Washington in 2023 when Ewers’ final pass of the game into the end zone went incomplete.

“Yeah, you know, it’s tough. I think coach Sark hit it. It’s the life of a competitor,” Ewers said. “It sucks being on this side of things, for sure. I mean, back-to-back years pretty much a game decided in one play and it’s hard.

“All the work that we put in, being in the final four back-to-back years and coming up short two years, it's tough. But I think that's how life is. You're going to get punched in the face in some hard moments.”

So where to rank Ewers, who went 21-5 as a starter his last two seasons? He finishes just behind McCoy in school history with a touchdown thrown in 27 consecutive games; McCoy had 29 from 2007-09. Ewers’ 36 starts is the sixth-most in school history. His 27 total wins is fourth.

In his college career, Ewers threw for 9,128 yards at Texas with 68 touchdowns and 24 interceptions. He completed 64.9% of his throws, too.

Ewers was the face of the program at a time when name, image and likeness payments came into existence, allowing him to cash in on fame. The sum total of Ewers’ haul will likely never become known, but safe to say, he’s probably leaving Texas a millionaire.

But Ewers also never played a full season due to multiple injuries. NFL scouts will wonder about his durability. They’ll also scrutinize why so many of Ewers’ passes were tipped at the line of scrimmage, several leading to interceptions. He’s not particularly quick to escape pressure, either.

Manning will give the Texas offense a much-needed jolt of mobility. Opposing coaches will turn on the UTSA film and see Manning racing 67 yards for a touchdown and be worried.

Manning was not afraid to throw deeper balls than Ewers, and he’ll take on rushing defenders. The Horns will have some new dynamics at their disposal when Manning takes the controls.

Perhaps that alone will help the second-half offensive woes that plagued this team. Texas was horrid in the third quarter this season, putting way too much pressure on the defense.

“I'm super proud of Quinn,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. “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. And that’s a real credit to him because human nature, in this day and age, is to look at Twitter, to look at Instagram, to look at social media and articles written and fan boards and whatever else. And you can ride that emotional roller coaster of whatever you think public opinion could be, and that could be the opinion of one or a hundred or whatever.

“But this guy never did that,” the coach added. “All he did was come to work every day. All he did was be a great teammate. All he did was work on his craft, get himself as healthy as he could when he was injured, and then show up when it was time to show up.”

Ewers grew up wanting to be a Longhorn. And he was, easily one of the best ever. He should be proud, and Longhorn Nation should be thankful.

Ewers’ legacy? A championship winner who bled orange.

“I hope we made the fans proud with our performances this year,” Ewers said. “We came up short, but I think we're definitely headed in the right direction as a program.”