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Texas' Quinn Ewers Talks Clemson CFP Matchup, Playing in SEC, More in B/R Interview

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Texas' Quinn Ewers Talks Clemson CFP Matchup, Playing in SEC, More in B/R Interview


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Perhaps the best part of the new 12-team College Football Playoff for fans is the environments it will create with the first-round games being played on campus.

“It’s going to be awesome,” Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers told Bleacher Report. “We’ve never experienced this and DKR has never experienced this. It’s going to be rocking for a playoff game with a lot at stake. I’m just excited to get on that field again.”

While Ewers and the Longhorns surely wanted the SEC championship and first-round bye that would have come with a victory over Georgia in the conference title game, landing the No. 5 seed and a first-round game at Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium is quite the consolation prize.

It’s not a stretch to suggest Texas has one of the clearest paths to the semifinals of anyone in the field, as it will face 12th-seeded Clemson at home in the first round before a potential showdown against fourth-seeded Arizona State at the Peach Bowl in the quarterfinals.

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The Peach Bowl is in Atlanta, which is far from Arizona State’s campus and right in the middle of SEC territory. That could give the Longhorns yet another advantage when it comes to the crowd.

But the focus is on Dabo Swinney’s Clemson program first.

“They’ve also been in a ton of big games, and they play really hard for their coach,” Ewers said. “They’re really well coached and disciplined players. It’s also cool I get to play against one of my really good friends from high school who went to Southlake with me. R.J. Mickens, who plays safety for them. It’s going to be a cool moment and experience with him for sure.”

Mickens is a talented playmaker at the back end of the Tigers’ defense, but Ewers joked he might have to “rub it in a little bit” if he beats his friend over the top with a deep ball during the playoff game.

Texas is the better seed and the favorite in the game, but it is Clemson coming in with momentum.

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The Tigers wouldn’t have even made the CFP without shocking SMU in the ACC Championship Game with a 56-yard field goal from Nolan Hauser as time expired. That stood in stark contrast to the Longhorns, who lost in overtime to Georgia with the SEC title on the line on the same day.

Fortunately for Texas fans, head coach Steve Sarkisian’s program has been defined by its ability to bounce back this year.

“We’ve been through a lot of adversity, and I think the culture that Coach Sark has built thrives on overcoming it,” Ewers said. “It’s 10 percent what happens and 90 percent how you react to what happened. We truly live by that. Sure, we’ll get hit in the mouth a couple times, but we’re never going to go away.”

Nobody has demonstrated that resiliency inside the program better than Ewers this season.

The signal-caller missed time with an oblique injury, was temporarily benched for Arch Manning during the regular-season loss to Georgia and even had to deal with a false report suggesting he was going to sit out for the season’s stretch run to focus on the NFL draft.

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What’s more, there is constant noise about the quarterback room given Manning’s status as the nephew of NFL legends Peyton and Eli Manning and as the No. 1 overall recruit of the 2023 class, per 247Sports’ composite rankings.

While the Longhorns occasionally use Manning as a change-of-pace option for running plays, this is Ewers’ team going into the playoff after he responded to the Georgia loss by spearheading a five-game winning streak with 13 touchdown passes to just three interceptions during that span.

He led his team to wins over dangerous Vanderbilt, Florida, Arkansas and Kentucky squads, as well as an important road win over rival Texas A&M in the first game between the two schools since 2011.

“I always say that the sign of the true character of a man is in the face of adversity, and that was a lot of adversity for him, a lot of adversity for us as a team coming off last week’s game,” Sarkisian said of Ewers after the Vanderbilt win following the Georgia loss in October. “I think the way he responded was kind of indicative of how we responded as a team.”

As Ewers was responding as a leader on the field, he also partnered with C4 Energy off it and even got to meet and greet with fans who entered the company’s sweepstakes in September.

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“It’s been great,” he said of the partnership. “What made me want to work with them is all the sponsorships they’ve done for athletes around me. Obviously they did one with Bijan [Robinson]. Our core values also align, and their headquarters are also in Austin. It’s been awesome working with them.”

C4 Energy

Ewers said his favorite flavor is strawberry guava while highlighting that “whether I’m going to class or going to the gym to get a workout in, it gives me a boost.”

Texas needed that boost for the 2024 season, as it moved from the Big 12 to the SEC as part of a larger conference realignment shift that also included the rival Sooners joining the league.

While the Longhorns didn’t have the most challenging schedule by SEC terms since it avoided Alabama, Tennessee, Ole Miss, LSU and Missouri, they still sent a message with a 34-3 blowout win over Oklahoma and defeated Texas A&M.

Those are the types of rivalry games Texas quarterbacks are remembered for, and Ewers made sure it was his team with regional bragging rights in the first year in the new conference.

That’s not to say there weren’t welcome to the SEC moments considering the Longhorns lost to Georgia twice. But they showed improvement from the 30-15 regular-season loss to the overtime defeat in the SEC Championship Game and surely hope being battle-tested in the SEC will pay dividends against teams from other conferences in the playoff.

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“I always wanted to play in the SEC and be a part of it,” Ewers said. “We got a taste of that when we went to Bama last year. It was cool to play a full SEC schedule. Man, if you don’t show up in the SEC, you’re going to get beat. And I think this year was a year that showed that. The Big 12 was fun for sure, but it’s not the same as the SEC. In the SEC, it’s all about football.”

Now he will look to deliver his new conference a national championship in the first year of the 12-team CFP field.



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North Texas middle school closes after a norovirus outbreak

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North Texas middle school closes after a norovirus outbreak


A middle school in the Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD is closed Friday after an outbreak of norovirus.

According to the school district, they closed Creekview Middle School in Fort Worth on Friday to sanitize and clean the building. The district said they plan on reopening the school on Monday.

The district said children started to get sick on Tuesday with what appeared to be a stomach virus and that on Wednesday it spread to a larger group.

EMSISD said they reached out to the Tarrant County Public Health Department and that they recommended disinfecting and cleaning the school on Wednesday night and reopening the next day.

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More cases continued to be reported on Thursday, so the public health department then recommended that they clean again and close the campus on Friday.

Parents were notified of the district’s decision on Thursday afternoon.

The district has not said how many students and staff were sickened in the outbreak.

Officials with Children’s Medical Center said that because norovirus is highly contagious and resistant to many common hand sanitizers, it presents a unique challenge for families.

The hospital says hand sanitizer isn’t enough and recommends thorough hand washing with soap and water. They also recommend parents keep their children home for a full 48 hours after symptoms stop to prevent further outbreaks.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there are approximately 2,500 norovirus outbreaks in the United States each year and that they are most common from November through April. For further tips on preventing the spread of norovirus, visit the CDC.



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Trump heads to Texas, where 3 friends are battling it out in the Senate Republican primary

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Trump heads to Texas, where 3 friends are battling it out in the Senate Republican primary


WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump just can’t seem to choose among friends in the Texas Senate Republican primary.

So when he travels to the state on Friday for his first post- State of the Union trip, where he plans to promote his energy and economic policies, Trump will have all three candidates in the competitive race join him — just days before his party casts ballots in the primary race.

Sen. John Cornyn is battling for his fifth term and is being challenged by state Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt in a primary fight that has become viciously personal. And all three men, missing the coveted endorsement from Trump, have been trying to highlight their ties to him as they ramp up their campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

For his part, Trump will be seeking to ride the message of his State of the Union address from Tuesday, where he declared a return to economic prosperity and a more secure America — two centerpiece arguments for Republicans as they campaign to keep their congressional majorities this fall.

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Trump’s hesitation to endorse in the Texas Senate primary speaks to the tricky dynamics of the race.

Cornyn is unpopular with a segment of Texas’ GOP base, in part for his early dismissiveness of Trump’s 2024 comeback campaign and for his role in authoring tougher restrictions on guns after the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. But Senate GOP leadership and allied groups see Cornyn as the stronger general election candidate, in light of a series of troubles that have shadowed Paxton.

Paxton beat impeachment on fraud charges in 2023, and has faced allegations of marital infidelity by his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, right, is joined by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, left, during a campaign stop in Austin, Texas, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. Credit: AP/Eric Gay

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have urged Trump to endorse Cornyn. They and allied campaign groups argue that the seat would cost the party hundreds of millions more to defend with Paxton as the candidate.

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“It is a strong possibility we cannot hold Texas if John Cornyn is not our nominee,” Scott told Fox News on Wednesday.

Hunt, a second-term Houston-area representative, was a later entry to the race, but claims a kinship with Trump, having endorsed him early in the 2024 race. Hunt campaigned regularly for Trump and earned a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

If no candidate reaches 50% in Tuesday’s primary, the top two finishers will advance to a May 26 runoff.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas,...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, arrive before President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. Credit: AP/Allison Robbert

Cornyn’s campaign and a half-dozen allied groups have poured more than $63 million into the race since last fall, chiefly trying to slow Paxton but recently attacking Hunt in an effort to keep him from making it to the runoff.

Earlier this month, Trump feinted toward weighing in on the race when he said he was taking “a serious look” at endorsing in the Texas primary. He has since reaffirmed his neutrality.

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Still, you wouldn’t know it from watching TV in Texas. Cornyn has been airing ads since last year touting his support for Trump’s agenda, even though his relationship with the president has been cool at times. Paxton and Hunt both have ads airing now featuring them standing with Trump.

“I like all three of them, actually. Those are the toughest races. They’ve all supported me. They’re all good. You’re supposed to pick one, so we’ll see what happens. But I support all three,” Trump said earlier this month.

The GOP battle comes as Democrats have a contested primary of their own in Texas between state Rep. James Talarico, a self-described policy wonk who regularly quotes the Bible, and progressive favorite U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

Trump hasn’t been shy about wading into other contested Republican primaries in the state. Parts of Corpus Christi fall within Texas’ 34th congressional district, where former Rep. Mayra Flores is fighting to reclaim her seat against the Trump-endorsed Eric Flores. (The two are not related.) The winner of the primary will face off against Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, long a target of the GOP, whose district was redrawn to make it easier for a Republican to win.

Eric Flores will be at the Trump event at the Port of Corpus Christi, which technically is located in a neighboring district.

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Elsewhere in the state, the president has also endorsed Rep. Tony Gonzales, who is fighting calls from his own party to resign from Congress after reports of an alleged affair with a former staffer who later died after she set herself on fire. Gonzales is refusing to step down and has said that there will be “opportunities for all of the details and facts to come out” and that the stories about the situation do not represent “all the facts.”

Gonzales is facing a primary challenge from Brandon Herrera, a gun manufacturer and gun rights influencer who Gonzales defeated by fewer than 400 votes in their 2024 runoff. The White House did not return a request for comment on Thursday on whether Trump stands by his endorsement of Gonzales.



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Man sentenced to 15 years in Texas crash that killed founding member of The Chicks

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Man sentenced to 15 years in Texas crash that killed founding member of The Chicks


EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after admitting his reckless driving caused a head-on collision in rural West Texas that killed Laura Lynch, a founding member of the country music group now known as The Chicks, prosecutors said.

Domenick Chavez, 33, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with Dec. 22, 2023, crash in Hudspeth County, according to a news release Tuesday from El Paso County District James Montoya, who also oversees nearby Hudspeth County.

The news release said Chavez was driving a truck westbound when he tried to pass four vehicles on a two-way undivided highway and collided head-on with Lynch’s eastbound truck. Lynch, 65, of Dell City, was trapped in her vehicle and died. Prosecutors said Chavez was traveling between 106 mph and 114 mph.

Prosecutors said alcohol wasn’t a factor in the crash but that Chavez was driving on a suspended license, which had been revoked due to his failure to comply with DWI-related surcharges and penalties from convictions in 2014 and 2017.

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Lynch, along with Robin Lynn Macy and sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer, formed The Dixie Chicks in the late 1980s. Lynch and Macy eventually left the band and Natalie Maines joined the sisters. The trio hit commercial fame with their breakthrough album “Wide Open Spaces” in 1998 and have won 13 Grammys. In 2020, the band changed its name to The Chicks.

In a social media post after Lynch’s death, The Chicks said Lynch had “infectious energy and humor” and was “instrumental” in the band’s early success.



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