Carson Beck: “I think he’ll be the No. 1 overall pick,” said one veteran SEC defensive coordinator. “A few things really stood out to me after playing him. He runs better than you think because he doesn’t do it often and he has such a quick release. He gets rid of it fast as s—. And he’s really intelligent. He’s one of the few quarterbacks who doesn’t look to the sidelines all the time. We were showing 0 (blitz) and he got them into a little quick screen. He’s really impressive.”

“He played lights out against us,” said a DC of a top 25 team. “He’s got that prototypical first-round QB look to him. His touch on the deep ball was tremendous. I don’t think there is a better quarterback in the country right now in terms of his size, accuracy, accuracy on the deep ball. I think he throws a better deep ball than Jayden Daniels.”

Ewers-

“I’m not that high on him,” said a DB coach who played Texas last year. “Overhyped. He has a good arm, and he did have a lot of talent around him, but you just see a bunch of stuff where you wonder what he’s doing out there.”

“I think he’s just still trying to figure things out,” said a veteran Big 12 assistant. “Sark (Steve Sarkisian) does such a good job of setting things up for him, and so you’ll see times where he’ll rip it, but then there are other times, he just seems to be a little timid.”

“I’m very curious to watch him this year,” said a Big 12 defensive assistant. “The last two years he had superstars around him. There’s some ‘Oh My God!’ throws on film that he made against Alabama, but he was just so inconsistent. I think he’s about average athletically.”

“I do think he’s come a long way from 2022,” said a Big 12 DC. “There was too much of the (Patrick) Mahomes comparisons around him coming into college. He does have a good arm, but he’s not anywhere near as athletic nor the playmaker Mahomes is, or has that kind of presence. It’s kind of a strange deal because people want to talk about that, about what he was supposed to be, or they want to talk about Arch Manning behind him. But that isn’t the kid’s fault.”

Dart-

“I think he’s really underrated,” said an SEC DC. “He has a lot of talent. I think his arm is excellent. He’s very streaky. His highs can be really high but his lows are really low. He’s tough as s—, almost to a fault.”

Milroe-

“They switched to lots of half-field reads last year,” said an SEC DC. “And he played really well. He has a strong arm and definitely has got a skill set. Has speed like Jayden Daniels but with a much, much thicker build.”

“He looks like a big running back who can throw it well,” said a veteran defensive assistant in the SEC. “They figured out what he could handle and then they took off. They did not have great talent around him, but he made it go because he’s such a dynamic running threat and they got a lot better up front as the season went on. I’m curious to see how he takes to that system. Penix had a ton of experience and has great arm talent and could really see it.”

Weigman-

“Man, he is very gifted and very tough,” said a Power 4 DC who has faced him. “We hit him a bunch and we affected him, but it didn’t change him. From toughness to arm strength and ability to move in and out of the pocket, he’s the most complete quarterback I’ve seen in awhile. Not saying he was the best one, but I could see in a couple of more years, he will be elite. Pretty composed kid. I really thought a lot of that guy. He’s scary.”

Nussmeier-

“He was better than I thought,” said one defensive assistant who faced Nussmeier. “His accuracy was very impressive. He was putting the ball on the spot 40-50 yards downfield. I thought the ball jumped out of his hands. It gets out so quick to the perimeter. I think he can do some good things this year.”

“He has a lot of talent,” said an SEC DC. “He’s not that big, maybe 6-1, but he has legit NFL arm talent. There’s not a throw he can’t make. And he moves pretty good but he’s such a riverboat gambler. He has to learn that not every play has to go for a touchdown.”

NY Times