While ESPN’s Paul Finebaum hasn’t been very popular with fans of the Big 12 Conference over the past few seasons due to his pro-SEC pandering, on Monday, he put the bias aside and called out Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers.
Ahead of the 2025 NFL Draft, rumors circulated that Ewers was offered upwards of $5 million to return to college football and transfer, but the Longhorns quarterback turned it down and entered the draft.
Despite likely being one of the top quarterback prospects in the weak 2026 class, Ewers remained in the 2025 Draft and fell all the way to the seventh round, where the Miami Dolphins took him.
Finebaum torched Ewers for that decision, noting that he “let his ego get in the way and made a terrible decision.”
“It’s a cautionary tale that you probably ought to get really good advice,” Finebaum said. “Listen, as somebody who saw Quinn Ewers a lot this past year, he just wasn’t that great. Everyone knows that. I walked around the Cotton Bowl at halftime of the Ohio State game, and I can’t tell you how many Texas fans yelled at me, and when I walked over to say hello, they said, ‘Why is this guy still playing quarterback?'”
“And by the way, that was a team that came within a play or two of making the National Championship<” Finebaum continued. “So you have to be smart. He just let his ego get in the way, and he made a terrible decision. He would not have been at Texas. We all know that. They didn’t want him anymore. He would have been somewhere like Carson Beck, making a lot of money, having a good time, and maybe working on his skills, as opposed to being humiliated the way he was.”
Ewers entered college as a former five-star prospect in the Class of 2021, and not only that, but he was also listed as the top-ranked player in the entire class. Unfortunately, Ewers was the 13th and final quarterback selected, falling behind Cam Ward, Jackson Dart, Tyler Shough, Jalen Milroe, Dillon Gabriel, Shedeur Sanders, Kyle McCord, Will Howard, Riley Leonard, Graham Mertz, Cam Miller, and Kurtis Rourke.
Sometimes, the grass isn’t always greener, and Quinn Ewers found that out the hard way.
