DALLAS — Quinn Ewers is the barometer.

As Texas' QB1 goes, so goes the fortunes of the 2024 Longhorns.

When it comes to winning national championships, few teams hoist that crystal ball without having a real dog at quarterback. The two most visible passers in the SEC will take quite a few snaps before they take the same field at Royal-Memorial Stadium on Oct. 19, but the preseason hype is real.

Ewers and Georgia’s Carson Beck are gobbling up all the Heisman Trophy talk this summer with SEC mate Jalen Milroe of Alabama occupying the dark-horse role. It’s become a quarterback’s award with 12 signal callers winning it over the last 14 seasons.

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Ewers is an emerging talent with NFL aspirations in a sport where it’s understood that the best teams playing on the final weekend won’t have a bum under center. He was surrounded by a peloton of cameras and recorders when Texas took center stage at SEC media days Wednesday at the Omni Hotel, and in true Ewers fashion, he kept it low-key. No quotes that could be turned into bulletin board material. No call-outs of the Aggies.

Just Quinn.

He’s a laid-back guy whose fire is more internal than external. Standing much taller in a shiny pair of black boots with thick heels, the 6-foot-2 Ewers took in questions about college football’s most coveted award with the casualness of a bank teller counting out $1,000 in Franklins at the end of an eight-hour shift.

“Quinn is like the coolest guy in the room,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. “He doesn’t get caught up in that stuff. When Quinn gets free time, he’s going to go hunt or go fish. When he’s here, he’s going to go to work with his teammates. He’s more focused on winning a championship and being the best player he can be.”

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While Ewers' 2023 numbers were nice — 3,479 passing yards, completing 69% of his passes with 22 touchdown tosses and only six interceptions — a realistic Heisman campaign would have to house much bigger numbers, even in the biggest team sport in the world. Last year's winner, LSU's Jayden Daniels, accounted for 50 touchdowns and nearly 5,000 yards for LSU. Ewers’ numbers improve upon his previous output — that is, if he can avoid the injury bug, having missed five games in the last two seasons.

As for the Heisman, he isn’t spending too much time striking that famous pose in July.

“The Heisman is a great honor for sure,” Ewers said. “But you know, coach Sark says it all the time: With team success comes individual accolades. I just want to go out there and take it one week at a time and win every day and win every week. When the team wins, all the individuals will get all that cool stuff.”

With supervised team workouts starting July 31, Ewers will take the reins of a team that lost plenty of offensive firepower this offseason as pass catchers Xavier Worthy, Adonai Mitchell, Jordan Whittington and Ja’Tavion Sanders joined running back Jonathon Brooks in the NFL.

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While he will never be confused with the more outgoing, locker room dancer we witnessed with the legendary Vince Young back in the day, Ewers has become more vocal in the last couple of seasons since arriving as a cherubic-faced transfer who'd skipped his senior season at Southlake Carroll to enroll at Ohio State.

Sarkisian said Ewers the freshman was trying to survive under some trying circumstances. The quarterback we see now isn’t a finished product, but he is a legitimate Heisman candidate for as much as he has matured mentally and as much as the bulk that he has gained physically.

“I think his personal development and his emotional development is something that has instilled a ton of confidence in everybody in our building,” Sarkisian said. “He walks in that building like he is the starting quarterback at the University of Texas, like we’re a top-five football team. And I think that has permeated throughout our locker room. Even the way I think he's carrying himself today is drastically different than maybe how he carried himself a year ago.”

They say championships are won in the offseason, and Ewers had a great spring on the field by most accounts though the true measure will come to bear in the leadership he displays in the huddle this fall. In a locker room not lacking in leaders, he has been one of its most outspoken voices, one of the chosen few who have taken on the responsibility of leading offseason workouts with the understanding that getting buy-in from the younger players and backups is key to building a champion here.

Ewers orchestrated player-only workouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays after the spring and his teammates raved about his presence in the huddle and off the field.

“I've seen straight dominance,” left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. said. “He makes sure we know, ‘Hey, this is the time where we’ve got to get our work done. The coaches are not here, but we have to come together as a team and know that hey, this is when we're working our craft. This is how we do things.’ He’s just making sure he stays on everybody.”

Letting his play speak for itself

Ewers’ arm has always been his ultimate communication tool, and you know by now that he has usually saved his best performances for the biggest stage. In Texas’ most important games last season — the Sugar Bowl loss to Washington, the Big 12 title game win over Oklahoma State, the Red River Rivalry loss to Oklahoma and the program-changing 34-24 win over Alabama — he completed 69.5% of his passes and averaged 382 yards and 2.2 touchdowns and 1 interception. Those are solid numbers given they came against teams that finished with a combined record of 46-10.

If anything, Ewers will have to guard against listless play in Texas' non-marquee games. One week after he lit up the Crimson Tide for 349 yards and three touchdown passes — two of them coming in a 21-point fourth-quarter blitz — the Horns were held to 10 points in the first three quarters against Washington. Ewers never got going until the fourth quarter, same as at TCU in November when a late fourth-quarter defensive stop staved off the upset.

Texas did go 12-2, but there were times when the offense didn't click as well. Consistency wins in the SEC and this fall will be a huge test, especially with a schedule that includes Beck’s Bulldogs rolling into the 512 a week after that October showdown in Big D.

Ewers has grown into the role and while there is still talk of a bright future when Arch Manning finally takes over, the team believes he will take them to special places for the second year in a row.

“At the end of the day, we're the University of Texas and I think that's what we expect of ourselves,” Ewers said. "The standard’s the standard. We want to go out there and we want to win games and we want to ultimately make it to wherever those win games take us. We want to be up there playing for championships for sure.”

It all starts with QB1.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers handles Heisman hype with lowkey aplomb