Why Ohio State football’s Quinn Ewers is a perfectly rated quarterback -- Buckeyes recruiting

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio State football has found a fourth quarterback for its 2021 roster in Quinn Ewers, who has elected to arrive six months early.

The five-star recruit from the Class of 2022 was supposed to be preparing for his senior season at Southlake Carroll High School in Texas, but will instead enroll a year early. Ewers is the nation’s top player in the class and the highest-rated player Ohio State has ever signed, with a perfect star rating.

He’s long been viewed as the best high school quarterback prospect since Trevor Lawrence, with expectations of one day being the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. In two years as the Dragons’ starting quarterback, he threw for 6,445 yards and 73 touchdowns while leading them to last season’s 6A Division I Texas State Championship game, where Carroll lost to Westlake High School led by Clemson commit Cade Klubnik.

Standing at 6-foot-3 and 206 pounds, Ewers has the ideal size for a quarterback while having a frame that could still put on weight working with OSU strength coach Mickey Marotti.

Ewers has all the tools and can make all the throws. That includes 70-yard passes down the field, making it look easy in the process. That’s what stands out about him. Everything he does looks easy and often like he’s not trying. His talent level and potential ceiling are why he walked into the Elite 11 competition in July as the favorite to win MVP. But it’s also why it was nearly impossible for him to live up to that.

Following the competition ESPN updated its 2022 player rankings, moving defensive tackle Walter Nolen ahead of Ewers. By doing so, Ewers dropped to 0.9999 because he was no longer the No. 1 player on every scouting service’s board.

When he moved to the 2021 recruiting class he became the No. 1 player and only five-star quarterback across every recruiting ranking, once again giving him a perfect star rating. By doing so he takes over as the class’ top player, which had been held by USC defensive end Korey Foreman.

His perfect rating puts him in a category with only Texas’ Vince Young (2002), Florida State’s Ernie Sims (2003), South Carolina’s Jadeveon Clowney (2011), Ole Miss’ Robert Nkemdiche (2013) and Michigan’s Rashan Gary (2016).

Ewers is headed to Columbus with the same expectations Lawrence had in 2018 when he got to Clemson. Neither was named the starting quarterback the moment he got on campus, but the idea that he could take the job hovered over both programs at some point. It took Lawrence five games to make that a reality. Ewers is talented enough to do the same.