247Sports says ‘fabricated’ Quinn Ewers post was result of hacking

For those who are terminally online, you may have seen a rumor about Quinn Ewers pop up on your timeline Monday.

That’s because a report surfaced — and was quickly deleted — that the Texas Longhorns quarterback would sit out the remainder of the 2024 college football season to prepare for the 2025 NFL Draft. As preposterous as that sounds, the reputable 247Sports put up a short-lived graphic about the “news,” which would’ve insinuated that Arch Manning would become the heir apparent to the starting quarterback job.

247Sports posted this to their Instagram and deleted shortly afterwards…

Do y’all think Quinn Ewers could actually opt out of the rest of the season? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/QjmDTFRq82

— College Football Talks (@cfbtalksonig) October 21, 2024

Ewers was benched for a few series in favor of Manning during Georgia’s 30-15 win over Texas. But the Longhorns’ starting quarterback returned to lead a bit of a second-half comeback. He also hasn’t put enough on film yet to warrant being one of the top quarterbacks selected in next year’s draft, let alone a Day 1 or 2 pick.

But the report’s validity died pretty quickly. Both Ewers and his representatives put out those flames, with the Texas QB taking to his Instagram story to post a picture of former president Donald Trump with his famous tagline, “Fake News.”

His representatives took a much more diplomatic approach to the unsubstantiated rumor.

So what happened here?

After deleting the post, 247Sports claimed it had been hacked on Instagram. They didn’t necessarily take responsibility for that rumor, but the outlet did apologize for any negative impact it might’ve had on Ewers and the suggestion that his college football career was over.

It indeed was not.

While speculation about his NFL prospects will undoubtedly swirl, the only “opt-out” Ewers is concerned about is the one where he opts to let us know whether Texas is back — or not.

[247Sports]