Texas QB Quinn Ewers shares song lyrics to IG story: ‘Turn me loose, set me free’

Injured Texas Longhorns redshirt sophomore Quinn Ewers was listening to music on Monday evening, and perhaps sending a larger message about his availability for Saturday’s game against the TCU Horned Frogs at Amon Carter Stadium in Fort Worth.

The music in question? “Dirty City” by the late great outlaw country legend Merle Haggard, one line of which goes, “Turn me loose, set me free, somewhere in the middle of Montana.”

Ewers isn’t heading to Montana any time soon, presumably, but the post to his Instagram stories by Ewers came after he started throwing last week in practice following an AC joint sprain in his throwing shoulder sustained in the third quarter of the narrow win over Houston a little more than two weeks ago.

During Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian’s Monday press conference, he upgraded Ewers from “week to week” to “day to day” even though Ewers didn’t go through warmups or dress for Saturday’s overtime win over Kansas State.

“He started to throw a little bit last week and he threw again today,” said Sarkisian. “To me it’s more day to day at this point where a few weeks ago couple weeks ago it was kind of week to week. Today’s more day to day and I’ve got to continue to see how he feels... I can give my assessment on the capability to operate our offense, but ultimately, how does he feel? And so we’ll navigate that this week.”

Ewers may have some extra motivation to get back quickly — the loss to TCU last year was one of his worst performances of the season in which he was 17-of-39 passing for 171 yards and an interception.

And while backup quarterback Maalik Murphy has produced some big plays in his two starts, he’s also been turnover prone with four giveaways in addition to lapses in accuracy against the Wildcats, a game in which he completed only 51 percent of his passes.