Scouting 2024 Texas QB commit Trey Owens

Texas has had their 2024 quarterback for most of 2023, quickly locking down Trey Owens in January and proceeding to build the rest of the class from there. It’s been a drama and hype-less recruitment due to a combination of factors such as Owens choosing early and currently ranking as the 2nd-lowest rated commitment in the class, only ahead of kicker Michael Kern.

Because Steve Sarkisian’s Texas tenure has been all about the high profile quarterback recruitments of Quinn Ewers, Arch Manning, and then KJ Lacey (although that was also done and settled early on before the hype started) it’s easy to overlook the guys in between such as Owens and Maalik Murphy.

However, Sark’s own history suggests it’s the lower ranked players who stick around and develop who often end up at the helm of his offenses.

The list of guys above is fairly eclectic in terms of recruiting ranking. Guys like Tua Tagovailoa, Mark Sanchez, John David Booty, and Quinn Ewers were all 5-stars ranked among the top players in their class. Cody Kessler, Casey Thompson, and Mac Jones were low 4-stars in ranking who bided their time before taking over late in their careers. Keith Price was a low 3-star Sark inherited at Washington.

The odds one of Murphy or Owens sticks around in Austin and has a big year at the helm over a more highly recruited player due to developing skill or finding an opportunity due to injury are quite high. To get a better sense of Owens’ current level and future prospects in the event he surprises Texas fans and takes the reins in a future season, I broke down his final junior game, a playoff loss against Cinco Ranch in the 2nd round of the 2022 6A playoffs.

Trey Owens and Cy-Fair

Cy-Fair is routinely a powerhouse team in the Houston area who routinely goes down in the second round of the playoffs against a stronger school like Katy, or in this case, Cinco Ranch. They have a under-center, pro-style orientation to their offense and routinely get into bigger personnel groupings and pound teams in the run game.

This squad was a little unique, partly because they had Trey Owens and partly because their star running back was a scat back named Zaccheas Baynes. You see Zaccheas was named well, listed as only 5-foot-6, 155 pounds. If he could win the edge, you were in trouble, but he wasn’t really the between the tackles runner to make the most of their normal power run game.

Still, he had 110 carries for 1,055 yards at 9.6 ypc with 15 touchdowns and was living large until this playoff bout against a high level defense. Owens threw 266 pass attempts on the year, 24 per game, for 2,840 yards at 10.7 ypa with 34 touchdowns to six interceptions. He spread the ball around quite a bit with his top two targets Owen Carter and Connor Porter hauling in 46 and 36 catches respectively.

It was a very multiple and sort of strange offense overall with a lot of two-tight end formations, some sets with a fullback, and a lot of run-centric focus despite the obvious emphasis on Owens and the passing game. This often played out with bubble screens thrown from running formations and early down play-action shots, but they didn’t really look completely at home with the heavy pass game focus.

In this contest with Cinco Ranch, Baynes had 11 carries which yielded five yards and zero touchdowns while Owens went 22-38 for 217 yards at 5.7 ypa with zero touchdowns or interceptions.

Next season Owens obviously returns along with his left tackle and top receivers. Perhaps the Bobcat offense will evolve some to emphasize that potential rather than being quite as run-focused as it has traditionally been, or maybe not if they were able to get him 38 attempts from their existing playbook.

What did the playoffs reveal about Owens?

Owens really had Cinco Ranch dead to rights in his sights and the Bobcats came up a little short due to a few crucial moments in the game. They opened the game by driving the field into the red zone where two mistakes cost them points.

First they threw a quick pop pass to the running back who motioned into a flex tight end alignment and darted up the seam. Cinco Ranch blitzed, Owens fired off a quick lob, but he crossed up his running back who’d turned over the other shoulder. That set up a 4th-and-5 Owens converted with his legs, something he’s clearly capable of doing if everyone turns their backs to him but will never be a major part of his game. The Bobcats then sent in the fullback and a bigger running back than wee Zaccheas, ran a toss pitch, and the ball was fumbled over to the opponent.

Another drive in the fourth quarter concluded in a punt after a play-action shot down the field bounced off the receiver’s hands. On their final drive Owens would see another long pass dropped, this time in the end zone, but they kept the drive going and punched it in. Cinco Ranch got the ball back tied 10-10 with over three minutes left and drained the clock before eking the winning field goal over the posts from 45 yards out.

Ultimately, receiver drops and the lack of a run game doomed Cy-Fair in this game, but Owens did a fair job hitting some throws down the field and a great job hitting outs, comebacks, and hitches underneath to keep drives alive when nothing else was landing.

Owens’ timing and the velocity on his throws was pretty key to Cy-Fair even having a chance in this game as they got some pretty tight coverage from Cinco Ranch.

He has some real potential in the world of shot offense due to his developing skill for keying the safety before firing and throwing outside.

Overall he’s the prototypical pro-style pocket passer. He’s big and tall enough to see down the field, he moves well in the pocket, his arm can reach throws outside the hash marks, and he’s already developing the footwork and mechanics to be able to look off safeties before setting and firing accurate throws into those narrow downfield windows.

He’s still developing in terms of handling pressure and maintaining consistent accuracy when resetting and throwing. Like most young quarterbacks, if he has to reset past his primary read the accuracy can deteriorate. Owens is exactly the sort of passer Sark has always loved to coach and he should get plenty of time in Austin, plus another year with a veteran group of receivers down in Cypress (Bobcat fight never dies), to become the exact sort of quarterback who emerges unexpectedly to dominate in a strong play-action system.

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