MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. – Quinn Ewers is just a bit different from the rest. Because of that, he has a way of getting everybody else to pay attention to him.
There’s plenty that makes him stand out – with the fact that he’s the No. 1 overall recruit in the 2022 cycle chief among them. Some other aspects? His hairstyle, arm motion and hobbies.
Let the Ohio State quarterback commit explain a little bit about each of those three.
The Mullet
Look around the Elite 11 Finals and you’ll see a lot of short-to-medium-length hair that looks – probably not coincidentally, given the number of cameras pointed in their direction this week – like they just went to a barber shop to get a fresh cut.
And then you see Ewers.
To call his hair unconventional would be an understatement. He’ll enter his senior year of high school with a bleached-blonde mullet that falls down to his shoulders. It isn’t business in the front, most definitely is not business in the back and is shaggy all over. And that’s how he likes it.
Ewers started growing his hair out with the goal of finishing off a mullet back when he was a freshman in high school.
“It's been cut once,” Ewers said after the first day of the Elite 11 Finals concluded. “In quarantine, I shaved it all off. But now I'm growing it back out. I really have no plan on cutting it anytime soon. Just the thought behind it was just being different. I didn't know a lot of people with it, so I'm just trying to be different.”
Why a mullet?
“Because three and half years ago there weren't many mullets,” he said.
He’s right. But three and a half minutes ago there weren’t many mullets either, and even fewer are blonde.
The blonde, however, isn’t natural which is why you can see the streaks of brown in his hair, too. He and his Southlake Carroll teammates have continued a decades-long tradition of bleaching their hair blonde when the high school football playoffs come around to honor a former coach who died in 1999.
So, the blonde won’t last forever. But the mullet? The mullet might have to stick around for a while.
“When I had my hair cut, I got injured, so I'm like Samson in the Bible now,” Ewers said.
Droppin’ It Low
Part of what makes Ewers himself as a quarterback is the nonchalance with which he tosses a football. Balls come out of his right hand with ease, as if he never has to try to put any extra oomph on his passes, yet the zip they have is unmistakable.
And it doesn’t matter if Ewers tosses the ball with a traditional motion, drops to 3/4 or goes full sidewinder. He just has a knack for putting balls where they need to be regardless of how far he drops his arm angle.
“I just think it's fun and I like to just be myself out here,” Ewers said. “So I'll do some off-platform throws. But I don't know how much at Ohio State we'll do that.”
Yes, Ewers and Ryan Day have talked about dropping his arm. No, you shouldn’t expect to see a lot of that in Columbus.
“You know, he wants me to get my arm angle a little higher than it is,” Ewers said. “So I'll just say that.”
The Sponsors
Ewers is quick to point out that he hasn’t had any conversations about deals with any businesses as the era of name, image and likeness arrives this week.
“I don't think they're allowed to yet,” he said.
But…
They’re coming. And he’s about to be a heck of a commodity.
On the field, Ewers is perfect. No, literally. He’s one of six players to have a 1.0000 rating by the 247Sports composite score. Off the field, whether intentionally or not, he’s a quickly growing brand. His mullet and flip from Texas to Ohio State made him as well-known as any other high school football player in the country. He already has 75,800 Instagram followers and 22,100 Twitter followers.
Companies, both in Columbus and beyond, will soon enough have interest in getting their name put in the same sentence as Ewers.
“Obviously it's something to look into,” Ewers said. “But for me, I'm just trying to keep the main thing the main thing, like they keep telling us, and just keep playing football. Everything else will just kind of fall in place from there. Definitely I've looked into it, kind of looked at the rules, see how that goes. But like I said, just keep the main thing the main things.”
So, which brands could he seem himself doing business with? Ewers leaned on his favorite hobbies – and, apparently, his favorite clothes.
“Definitely Wrangler, for sure. Wrangler jeans,” he said. “Maybe some fishing companies. Bass Pro, Cabela's, Academy, stuff like that.”
Ewers didn’t have to think too long about the open-ended question. Outside of football, which is where he gets his competitive juices flowing, he likes to fish or hunt more so than anything else.
Nothing too stressful. Nothing too serious.
“I think about the next big bass I'm going to catch or the next lure I'm going to catch if I don't get a catch in the next 15 minutes,” Ewers said. “I just kind of do it to kick back, relax and just have some alone time.”
