Quarterback Quinn Ewers is practicing, but his participation in Texas-Mississippi State game is questionable

Steve Sarkisian had good news and bad news during his Monday morning press conference previewing the Texas Longhorns’ upcoming game against Mississippi State.

The good: Quarterback Quinn Ewers is back in practice after suffering a non-contact abdominal strain in Week 3 against UTSA. The bad: He is still questionable for the SEC opener at Texas. The silver lining? Arch Manning has been solid in place of Ewers.

“Quinn is practicing today. I would say if, again, if I had to issue a report, he would be questionable for Saturday,” Sarkisian said. “But we’ll see how he does during the week and we’ll monitor how he responds tomorrow after practice today.”

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Manning replaced Ewers and immediately scored two touchdowns against the Roadrunners. The momentum followed him into his first career game last weekend against Louisiana-Monroe. Manning completed 15 of 29 passes for 259 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions against the Warhawks, helping the Longhorns to a victory that kept them atop the AP rankings.

“I think one of the challenges is that we try to make sure that when the ball is passed, he art football, because it’s still a game and you still have to play it,” Sarkisian said of Manning. “I don’t want him to get paralyzed by analysis, because you can overprepare to a certain extent, where you start chasing what I thought was going to happen because that’s what I saw.”

As for when Ewers might return, Sarkisian doesn’t have a clear answer. It all depends on whether he thinks Ewers can execute the game plan effectively.

“I hate to boil it down to that, but it’s really true,” Sarkisian said. “So I have to see how he responds to today’s work, and then how he responds Tuesday, and then Wednesday, which are pretty tough days for him, and then how he bounces back Thursday, and so on and so forth.

“So it’s going to be a work in progress. But today was a good start. I was impressed with where he was today, but that’s been his trajectory since the injury. I feel like he’s getting better every day.”