Quinn Ewers, this is your offense.

Get that arm ready to air it out this fall because it's the only way the Texas Longhorns can live up to some lofty preseason expectations.

The absence of running back CJ Baxter has changed the dynamic. His season-ending knee injury, however unfortunate, has placed more of the onus on Ewers’ right arm.

That should have been the plan all along, though: Throw it, and throw it some more.

Texas has to pivot after Baxter's injury

Sure, we all understand that under Steve Sarkisian, the Longhorns have always run to set up the pass, but those previous three teams had an elite runner and good depth to boot.

More: Why it's OK for Texas football fans to think about a 2024 national championship | Golden

Jaydon Blue and Quintrevion Wisner are fine backs, but neither can be confused with Bijan Robinson, a true Texas star who has earned a rightful place in that second tier of all-time great Longhorns backs behind Heisman Trophy winners Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams.

Robinson was the obvious bell cow in those 2021 and 2022 offenses and had a fellow future NFL running back in Roschon Johnson as his backup. They held it down while Ewers was figuring out the college game.

With Texas’ current makeup at running back — freshmen Jerrick Gibson and Christian Clark are only a few weeks removed from their senior proms — Sarkisian understands that games will be won and lost with his most experienced players doing the heavy lifting, though you know he isn’t about to abandon the running game altogether. It’s not how he’s built.

More: Jaydon Blue may be the next man up, but who else could be a factor in the Texas backfield?

With that said, it would be fun to see the Horns spread it out and force SEC defenses to cover some talented wideouts. Fun? Shoot, it’s essential for success in 2024.

“We have a system in place that we love balance, we love versatility,” Sarkisian said during Thursday’s media availability. “We love multiple personnel groupings. We love motion, shifts, formations, all that kind of stuff. But I’m not so stubborn to think that, OK, whatever our team may be best at, that's where you start to have to lean into.”

That means you, Quinn. And if you struggle, then Arch Manning will get a look.

More: What to know about Jaydon Blue, the replacement for Texas football RB CJ Baxter

Texas' roster is built to air it out

Sark aspires to be balanced, but I’m reminded of what Mack Brown often said during the program’s great run of 10-win seasons to begin the 2000s. Balance isn’t necessarily about being 50-50 when it comes to run-pass, but being able to capably do what you want to do whenever you want to do it. If that means passing it eight out of 10 plays but still running it effectively when you need to, then that’s great balance.

Whoever plays quarterback, the Horns are constructed to be a high-octane passing attack. They are deep and explosive at wideout with newcomers Silas Bolden, Matthew Golden, Isaiah Bond and Amari Niblack expected to contribute right away with returning Johntay Cook II and others. More important, that offensive line is loaded with grown men who have been guarding Ewers’ back for years. Left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. will be cashing NFL paychecks this time next year, and center Jake Majors has played 42 games.

Now that he has come of age, Ewers should be more than comfortable with taking on even more of the load. It’s been building to this moment. The best teams have an alpha dog behind center, and Ewers has an opportunity to show he’s ready to be the Colt McCoy of this attack.

At the end of that aforementioned golden era under Brown and offensive coordinator Greg Davis, the Longhorns were built to win on McCoy’s arm. In his last two years, the Longhorn legend threw for 7,380 yards with 61 touchdowns and only 20 interceptions. Those numbers — and a 25-2 record as a starter — earned him a pair of Heisman Trophy finalist finishes and the reputation as one of the greatest leaders at the position in UT history.

Neither of those teams had a player rush for more than 600 yards as Davis quickly figured out that McCoy and talented wideouts such as Jordan Shipley and Quan Cosby could take the lead in an offense predicated on the pass.

Texas can win in the SEC with a similar approach. Ewers threw for 3,479 yards with 22 touchdowns and only six interceptions in 12 games last year. By comparison, eight SEC passing attacks topped 3,100 yards while 12 had at least 20 touchdowns. Keeping Ewers clean is Priority 1 because he's likely to top that 32.8 attempts-per-game average from last season.

With the first scrimmage coming up Saturday, Sarkisian and running backs coach Tashard Choice are obviously in adjustment mode now that the lineup will be missing a solid between-the-tackles runner who could also catch it out of the backfield. Blue was already the best big-play option in that room, but he has carried it only 23 times in his first two seasons. Wisner made his bones as a special teams star in 2023 and carried it 12 times. Both are due for a much larger workload, but Sarkisian is smart enough to know where the team’s fortunes will lie: at quarterback.

“There's been different years and different teams I've been a part of where the passing game became the focal point of the offense and the run game became the complement to that,” Sarkisian said.

This is one of those years.

"We're a week into this thing from a football installation, learning our team perspective,” he added. “As we start getting through two scrimmages, we'll start to get a real identity for our team and where our strengths are, and then we'll start to lean in that direction but still not neglect all aspects of our team, because we're at our best when we have really good balance.”

Sarkisian has never coached a full season when he didn’t have a 1,000-yard rusher, but that could change this fall.

We’re about to find out if Quinn Ewers is the NFL prospect many believe him to be.

Air it out, Sark.

It’s Quinn’s time.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas football must rely on quarterback Quinn Ewers to lead 2024 team