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Clayton Carnley
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The entire recruitment of Quinn Ewers, one of the top rated prospects regardless of position ever in the history of recruiting, started with this Pete Thamel tweet at nearly 6:00 p.m. on a Friday night. After a semester at Ohio State, the former five-star quarterback decided he wanted to transfer and move closer to home.
This was a storyline unlike no other, a five-star recruit and the former No. 1 overall prospect skipping his senior year of high school to enroll at Ohio State this past Fall.
The mention of Texas Tech set message boards across the internet on fire, and had our phones blowing up with the news that the Red Raiders weren't a throw-in here. In fact, only a day after this was tweeted, Ewers and his family traveled to Lubbock and met with new head coach Joey McGuire for a tour of the program and campus.
With the news breaking and Ewers on campus the next day, there was a sense of optimism from the Tech side of things - coaches and fans alike.
And why not? At the time this news broke, new head coach Joey McGuire had not even been coaching at Texas Tech for a full month. Recruiting under McGuire and his staff had become it's own storyline with the new staff offering nearly 130 new prospects throughout the 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 classes.
The storylines from the visit were that Ewers enjoyed Lubbock, that Zack Kittley was on campus finalizing his deal to become the Tech Offensive Coordinator and the two were able to meet one another while Quinn was in Lubbock.
There was not a ton of confidence, but after the visit ended, it seemed the Red Raiders were firmly in the mix to land Ewers and not 'just included' or mentioned in the race.
That weekend, even with the visit, most people in our industry still expected Texas to land Ewers. After the visit last weekend, Thamel - clearly getting info from the Ewers family directly - shared that Ewers would visit TCU the next day.
There really was never a dull moment, and although Ewers visited TCU, the Horned Frogs flipped Rockwall-Heath QB Josh Hoover from Indiana during Ewers' visit to Fort Worth. These are all rumors and I cannot confirm the story, but I'm told that was a development the Ewers family did not expect and they decided to focus on Texas Tech and Texas moving forward.
Of course, we do not cover Texas recruiting, but somewhere in between was an in-home visit with Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian and our Rivals affiliate Orangebloods reported 'First Round Pick NFL level NIL money' available for Ewers in Austin.
Now that things are official, we may or may not ever truly know what happened on the NIL side of things, but it is safe to assume NIL was absolutely a consideration in this decision. The reported numbers on Rivals were $2-3 million, and others have reported even more.
Could Texas Tech compete with that, or would they want to compete with that? Regardless of anyone's individual interests, this entire recruitment and the NIL money attached here could forever change college football as we know it.
Speaking of rumors, there were reports of the McGuire family and the Ewers family having a connection. Whatever that connection might be, I have not seen that confirmed or reported with any detail over the past week.
What we do know is that Coach McGuire has an extensive network of coaches throughout all levels of football in the state and it seems reasonable those relationships extend to Southlake and the surrounding community.
The visit went so well, we received calls and texts from several of our colleagues who cover Texas across multiple websites. If we are being honest, Texas Tech is not usually in the running for a five-star or No. 1 player in the country, so all of this was massively interesting to cover and watch develop over the past week.
Tech finalized the hire of Kittley, and they were able to schedule an in-home visit with Ewers and his family this past Wednesday night. Earlier that same day, Orangebloods reported that Ewers had plans to visit Austin over the weekend and make a decision on Monday.
Of course, we now know that he did visit Austin this weekend and it went so well that he committed to the Longhorns last night.
However, we were told that the in-home visit went very well and that Ewers was intrigued about the new offense under Kittley at Texas Tech. That is another storyline from this entire recruitment, and ultimately why the Red Raiders were considered so heavily. Ewers works out at APEC in Fort Worth, the same gym that Patrick Mahomes works out at and where the two became familiar with one another. We were told that Mahomes joined a video call during Ewers' visit to Lubbock and spoke about Kittley's role in his development at Texas Tech.
After the in-home visit with Kittley last week, we were told Ewers had a call with Mahomes and shared how much he liked Kittley, his offense and the idea of playing for him.
When these high profile recruitments are shared so openly in the public, we receive all sorts of tips and information. With the coaches out on the road last week, I had two separate instances where high school coaches and other writers in the Rivals network were sharing information that "Ewers is choosing Tech".
The momentum and rumor mill around the Red Raiders was real. When a five-star and a No. 1 overall rated prospect shows interest and wants to visit, consider your program...you have to listen, you have to try and see it through.
Again, Joey McGuire has been the head coach at Texas Tech for nearly five weeks and the program has 11 new commitments in both the 2022 and 2023 recruiting class, including some massive lands and Rivals 250 prospects who were nowhere near considering the Red Raiders before last month. Think about that, we are talking about 2+ commitments per week under this new staff. Considering where things stood before the coaching change, that is wildly impressive and should give fans a ton of confidence in the direction of this program.
Losing Ewers to Texas seemed predictable the whole time, but it doesn't make the outcome any easier to swallow.
Do the coaches take a QB in the 2022 class? Maybe, but looking through the remaining 2022 QBs, it would take a prospect waiting to sign until February at the high school level. It is more likely the coaches watch the portal, and what is available in the portal will change drastically over the next month.
Do the quarterbacks in the room - Smith, Shough, Morton - feel slighted by this past week and the very online recruitment of Ewers?
Probably not, these kids are football players and the coaches had not recruited a 2022 QB the entire year. The position itself inherantly comes with competition on a year after year basis. There is not doubt that Kittley has to get into the room and build his own relationships, make sure the current players are being recruited as well. But that does not seem like a concern at the moment, and I expect all three signal-callers to continue competing in bowl practices and into spring practices.
Last but certainly not least, while you 'have' to pursue the Ewers-type prospect when the opportunity presents iteself, we can agree it is time to focus on all the positive changes at Texas Tech over the past month.
Kittley is widely regarded as a young star at Offensive Coordinator, he bridges the previous gap in relationship with Patrick Mahomes and it is safe to say the NFL MVP will be more involved with the program at some level moving forward.
Most of all, Kittley took a chance and went out on his own. He took an unrated QB from Victoria, Texas that no other program wanted and developed him into one of the nation's top quarterbacks at TWO different programs. Zappe went from unrated to a Reese's Senior Bowl invitation, to a conference MVP, to a First Team All-Conference player and several other honors / accolades to mention.
My final thought and personal opinion here is this...you have to be in the fight to win, and although the coaches did not win this round, the sheer fact they were firmly in the mix should give Texas Tech fans a ton to look forward to as the coaches finalize this 2022 class and continue to build a 2023 class already ranked in the Top 10 nationally.
Thanks for following along, through the good and bad updates...now let's have a NSD week and see where the chips land for the 2022 early signing period.
