Reordering the timeline and severity of Quinn Ewers’ oblique injury and season narrative

The narrative has shifted — instead of suffering a strained oblique against UTSA, Ewers suffered a torn oblique in the road win over Michigan.

With the NFL Scouting Combine looming this weekend in Indianapolis, the pre-draft process is reaching something of an apogee as the narrative creation process enters a new stage.

For former Texas Longhorns quarterback Quinn Ewers, that meant a Tuesday reordering of his injury history last season — instead of suffering a strained oblique against UTSA, Ewers aggravated or worsened the torn oblique that he suffered in the road win over Michigan the week before, according to NFL Network’s Tom Peliserro and later confirmed by Josh Newman of LoneStarLive.com and other Texas media outlets.

In medical terms, it’s a relatively slight distinction because by definition any strain involves some muscle tearing. Calling it a torn oblique instead of a strained oblique is about the severity and it’s largely a subtle rebrand meant to emphasize the extent to which Ewers played through pain and was impacted by the injury that impacted his core rotation as a passer.

The suggestion is that the injury sustained by Ewers both happened earlier and was worse than the Texas quarterback and his head coach allowed the public to know.

Combined with Ewers playing through a high ankle sprain sustained in the regular-season home finale against Kentucky, the redshirt junior had to gut out the season, first returning from the torn oblique after missing two games to blow out Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl and lose the high-profile home matchup against Georgia, often looking just a little bit off.

And even though the discussion of arm talent surrounding Ewers usually focuses on his accuracy, low arm slot, and ability to layer intermediate passes, his velocity and accuracy are still largely dependent on his core making his arm and release look superlative — that’s inherent to the physics of throwing a football.

The narrative shift from the Ewers camp is also meant to emphasize the importance they want NFL organizations to put on how he throws at the Combine, which most top quarterbacks skip because there’s no real upside — their film already says enough.

For Ewers, the film doesn’t say enough with all the injuries and a handful of other factors that increased the difficulty of reaching his peak potential enough to ultimately ensure it never happened, however one decides to dole out the blame.

That’s the nature of evaluation, to a great extent, and how much farther Ewers can shift the narrative into a more favorable draft position by showcasing the arm talent and accuracy that sent his collegiate expectations into the stratosphere in the first place is a major NFL Draft storyline.

But if the shift in injury timetable and severity is going to become the accepted narrative, it’s also impossible not to reflect on how much those injuries changed the Texas season, from the struggles of an injured Ewers against Georgia with the “torn” oblique to the struggles of Ewers against Georgia with a high ankle sprain.

It’s hard in particular not to flash back on the cornerback blitz by Daylen Everette that caused the huge sack-fumble in that game as the former elite prospect hit Ewers at somewhere near full speed right on his “torn” oblique.

Call it strained or call it torn, that’s a massive collision that changed the game and the arc of the entire college football season as a result.

Both injuries contributed to the Longhorns having to play in the first round of the College Football Playoff, affording Ewers less time to recover and more wear and tear on the entire team, all as Arch Manning almost entirely stood on the sideline and watched.

Decisions about the health of star players are difficult for head coaches to manage — none larger than quarterback — and Sarkisian erred on the side of sticking with the guy who came to Austin to live his lifelong dream after the Longhorns went 5-7 in Sarkisian’s first season and ultimately led Texas right to the edge of a national championship game two straight years three significant injuries over those two seasons.

And let’s be clear — sticking with Ewers is the same decision that Nick Saban and almost every other great coach would make, too.

Hell, it was the legendary Darrell K Royal who popularized the phrase, “Dance with the one who brung ya.”

It’s also a decision irrevocably changed by Manning’s presence because the metaphorical meeting with a Manning in the dance hall is the type of thing that changes everything really quickly, regardless of who brung ya.

Loyalty knowing limits that way is a fact of the human condition. A lot of the ones who brung ya get left like that, drama that makes up the stuff of movies and novels and any other type of art humans make.

And that’s the shadow over the sorting of Ewers’ legacy, no matter the injury specifics.