In the summer of 2021, the nation’s top high school football recruit, Quinn Ewers, arrived on Ohio State’s campus in what amounted to a recruiting coup.

Less than a year earlier, the teenage quarterback from suburban Dallas had backed out of his commitment to play for the Texas Longhorns and reopened his recruitment. Now he appeared to be next in line to help the powerhouse Buckeyes win the college football national championship.

More than three years later, Ohio State University’s two dominant victories came in Friday’s semifinal opener of the College Football Playoff in Arlington, Texas. For Ewers there are only two wins left until the national title.

Except now he plays for Texas.

The reunion, with the national title at stake, would be remarkable as a football story alone. Jack Sawyer, a star Buckeyes defenseman who will try to sack Ewers on Friday, was once his roommate.

Both schools are trying to break their title drought. Texas last won a national title in the 2005 season and Ohio State in 2014. The winner will advance to the national championship Jan. 20 in Atlanta to face the winner of the other semifinal between Penn State and Notre Dame.

“I don’t regret any decision I made to leave or anything like that,” Ewers told reporters before Friday’s Cotton Bowl, site of a semifinal. He said his relationships with many at Ohio State still “feel like if I saw them walking on the side of the road, it would be like I hung out with them yesterday.”

Ewers’ story has also become one of the best examples of the changes reshaping the NCAA.

Starting in June 2021, players finally had the opportunity to receive compensation for the use of their names, images, and likenesses (and in the future, players will also be able to earn a share of their schools’ revenue). At the same time, the relaxed rules have made it easier than ever to change schools without penalty.

Originally on track to graduate from high school in the spring of 2022, Ewers instead skipped his senior year of high school and transferred to the class of 2021 to sign with Ohio State.

Part of his motivation was his relationships with coaches like Ryan Day, who offered Ewers a scholarship in eighth grade. (“He was really a kid back then who was just experiencing a tremendous amount of relief,” Day said.) But a major factor in his decision to accelerate his path to college, Ewers said on Monday, was the opportunity to capitalize on zero payments as College athletes he wouldn’t have been allowed to earn had he stayed in Texas.

“One of the most important things was that there was, I don’t know if you remember or not, but the Texas Legislature wouldn’t allow high school football players to be paid,” Ewers said. “And me and my family had a pretty big opportunity in front of us because we felt like it was a good decision for me to forego my senior year and enroll early at Ohio State, and I had the opportunity to do good things “To make money in our pockets as a family.”

A few days before he set foot on Ohio State’s campus in August 2021, Ewers announced his first endorsement – with a kombucha company. As ESPN reported, Ewers had soon signed an NIL contract with a sports marketing company worth $1.4 million over three years.

After less than three months and a semester at Ohio State, Ewers transferred to Texas to play for the Longhorns’ new coach, Steve Sarkisian.

“The reason I came back to Texas was, one, I wanted to be closer to where I came from and just closer to the resources that I have and the relationships that I’ve built over time, just because I’m from Texas,” Ewers said.

As the Longhorns’ starting quarterback for the past three seasons, Ewers has used those resources as lucratively as anyone in college sports. According to an On3 tally, he has signed up to 25 NIL deals with companies producing a variety of products such as tea, video games and jerky, as well as with a streaming network.

Ewers could still have another twist in his career ahead of him. In late December, On3 reported that Ewers, who could turn pro this month and declare for the NFL draft, was offered $6 million by an unnamed school to enter the NCAA transfer portal and sign there to play another college season. From a purely financial perspective, Ewers is already one of the biggest winners of the new era of free movement in college sports. Now he’s trying to become the big winner of the College Football Playoff’s ultimate prize.

However, his former team stands in his way.