Well, that was a thing that happened on Monday afternoon.
AUSTIN, Texas — For a few minutes, the Texas Longhorns portion of the college football interwebs exploded on Monday afternoon when a screenshot from the 247Sports Instagram page was posted saying quarterback Quinn Ewers will sit out the rest of the season to prepare for the 2025 NFL Draft.
247 posted this on IG and then immediately deleted…could Quinn Ewers opting out really be on the table? I find this hard to believe. pic.twitter.com/eUqV1xUrBh
— Sidelines Sports Network™ (@Sidelines_SN) October 21, 2024
The post was quickly deleted, raising questions about who posted it and why the graphic existed in the first place.
On Monday evening, 247Sports released a statement on the situation, saying the account was hacked.
Apparently Ewers’ phone lit up like Twitter did because the Texas starting quarterback appeared to post a response in an Instagram story of his own with a Donald Trump gif saying “Fake news!”
Adding to the drama was the fact that Ewers did not make his usual Monday media appearance after his poor showing against Georgia, which he normally only misses when he’s injured, a relatively frequent occurrence over the last three years with Ewers — the Southlake Carroll product has missed seven starts since taking over the QB1 role over the Forty Acres due to injuries each year.
The question of whether Ewers is still struggling with the oblique strain he suffered on Sept. 14 that caused him to miss two starts was a topic of conversation during head coach Steve Sarkisian’s press conference on Monday.
“I don’t think it’s impacting him at all,” Sarkisian said. “I really think he’s healthy and feels good about it. Is he 100 percent? I don’t know. Is anybody on our team 100 percent? Going into Week Eight, probably not. Everybody’s got something right now.”
Sarkisian remains confident in his starter even after benching him for two series at the end of the first half against Georgia.
“Quinn needs to play better and I believe that he will.”