you can call it whatever you want, but there has never been a more mediocre, underwhelming, weak-link-in-the-chain player who has been so inexplicably exalted and singled out for praise by his fan base. from the perennial predictions of heisman trophies and being the no.1 overall draft pack despite his lackluster, hold-the-team-back play, to fans on this site (not to mention every other longhorn bbs) comparing him to colt mccoy and vince young as recently as this january, again, despite him being one of the worst players on the team. it’s fanatical behavior at minimum.
you then have the extremely emotional and combative reactions from our fan base any time anyone dares to state the obvious- that QE wasn’t some all-world qb and leader, and that he actually wasn’t performing up to the standard of everyone around him. you can trash any of his clearly-better teammates with impunity, but for three years, to be critical of quinn ewers was to incur the wrath of your longhorn brethren, no matter how obviously fair and accurate the criticism was. QE was off limits.
to this very moment, the majority of our fan base credits quinn, the player who held us back the most, who potentially prevented the rest of his absolutely loaded rosters from winning back to back national titles with his objectively underwhelming, non threatening playoff performances, with “bringing Texas Football back”. not sark, the real hero- not bijan, or banks, or worthy, murphy, sweat, barron, simmons, etc- our fan base credits the guy who actually held us back, with turning this program around essentially single-handedly, like he’s junior year vince young, and not pocket jitters david ash.
the outpouring of overly emotional “thank you quinn; seriously, thank you for everything” type posts ( it just here, but all over twitter, reddit, pay sites, etc) after he announced for the draft was so beyond bizarre and puzzling it was aggy-like. considering how loaded these last two teams were, and considering that QE, more than any other player, held us back from reaching our potential, i cannot imagine there ever being a more inexplicably overrated, exalted, beloved, and protected player in the history of Texas Football. you may not think that that’s a cult-like following- i do. whatever you call it, the guy has an undeniable pied piper dynamic with our fan base, one that will only look even more strange and inexplicable after arch manning reminds everyone here of what dynamic, top flight qb play and leadership actually looks like later this year.