Texas QB Quinn Ewers lost composure in face of attacking Georgia defense

The Bulldogs looked elite again on defense Saturday, rattling the Longhorns and then taking advantage of its lead.

AUSTIN, Texas — If a single image sums up how the quarterbacks of the then-No. 1 Texas Longhorns performed in Saturday’s 30-15 loss to the then-No. 5 Georgia Bulldogs in Austin, it’s not even Quinn Ewers and Arch Manning taking hits or fumbling or on the ground after one of the seven sacks by Georgia head coach Kirby Smart’s defense.

It’s of both quarterbacks on the bench in the closing seconds of the first half looking shellshocked and wearing 1,000-yard stares in which images of Dawg defenders chasing them from every angle danced.

For Manning, the redshirt freshman who was experiencing true SEC size and speed for the first time, it was understandable and forgivable. He’d been inserted into the game with 4:43 remaining in the second quarter by Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian with the Longhorns down 20-0 and struggling for any footing at all, thanks in part to the struggles of the redshirt junior Ewers, who had already thrown an interception and fumbled.

“I felt Quinn was a little uneasy, and I just felt like giving him a chance to kind of step back, regroup. I didn’t know if we get a series or two with Arch [Manning], depending on how much time was remaining in the half on the clock. So we just told Quinn, ‘Hey, we’re gonna go with Arch here, Give you a chance to get into the locker room. Let’s regroup and then come back out in the second half,’” Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said after the game.

Manning had his own struggles, going 3-of-6 passing for 19 yards and taking two sacks at the end of his brief appearance. After scrambling for 21 yards to open his second drive running the two-minute drill trying to get Texas on the scoreboard, Manning was sacked by an 11-yard loss by Georgia Money linebacker Jalon Walker and then sacked again on the next play by Jack end Damon Wilson, fumbling the ball away. The young quarterback had also missed the team’s best chance to score in the first half, missing junior wide receiver Matthew Golden open over the middle and instead forcing a pass to sophomore wide receiver DeAndre Moore Jr. Texas had to punt from near midfield.

The performance of Ewers was neither understandable nor forgivable as a third-year starter. It was a game reminiscent of the 17-10 loss to No. 4 TCU in Austin late in the 2022 season when Ewers went 17-of-39 passing for 171 yards and an interception.

But that was Ewers in his first year as a starter with limited depth at wide receiver and star Xavier Worthy playing through a broken hand. This is Ewers behind an experienced offensive line with a deep wide receiving corps trying to cement his stock as a first-round draft pick next April.

And that context is why it was so shocking to see Sarkisian bench his starter for regressing noticeably in some key areas, the second straight shaky start for Ewers since returning from the oblique strain that caused him to parts of three games. Against Oklahoma, it was a regression in his footwork that Ewers credited to his practice habits during gameweek. Against Georgia, the pressure caused him to lose his eye discipline.

“I just didn’t think he was at his best. A lot of things I’ve seen him do, I wasn’t quite seeing. I don’t think his eyes were where he needed to be. That’s why I felt like he needed to reset and regroup at halftime,” Sarkisian said.

When Ewers lost his eyes, his overall performance deteriorated, including his pocket presence. On one play early in the second quarter, down 7-0 and pinned at the Texas goal line because of a holding penalty that negated a 64-yard return by Golden, Ewers missed a shot play to junior wide receiver Isaiah Bond and then completely lost his pocket presence on a nine-yard sack on third down that forced the Longhorns to punt from the back of the end zone.

Georgia clearly had good coverage on the back end, but the pocket was also clean for Ewers, who drifted to his right, cognizant of Walker coming from the left, but then failed to climb the pocket, blundering into a sack by the Bulldogs linebacker.

It’s the type of pocket that should not produce a sack, especially on the goal line — Ewers not only displayed poor pocket presence, but poor situational awareness as well.

The pressure also seemingly impacted the decision making of Ewers, who had six turnover-worthy throws with multiple passes hitting Georgia defenders in the hands or chest. As poorly as the game went for Ewers on Saturday, the Bulldogs also missed plenty of opportunities to come up with more interceptions and make it a truly miserable performance for the Southlake Carroll product.

On the interception that Ewers did throw trying to target Golden, Georgia cornerback Daylen Everette was playing zone coverage with his eyes on the Texas quarterback, allowing him to jump the throw. Had Ewers waited for senior tight end Gunnar Helm to clear Everette’s responsibility playing the curl to flat, he might have had a completion into that window and some offensive momentum instead of the Bulldogs scoring three plays later on a 35-yard drive to take a 17-0 lead.

Because the deficit got away from Texas in the first half, the Longhorns had to attempt 31 passes after halftime with just 11 rushing attempts. After producing five sacks in the first half, Georgia only managed two in the second half, but was still able to generate pressure and make Ewers uncomfortable at times, including forcing another fumble on a fourth-down attempt in the fourth quarter.

“You start throwing the ball when you’re trying to come back in those situations and they’ve got elite pass rushers, too,” Sarkisian said. “They recruit really well, too, and that’s when the game gets a little bit out of flux — when it’s a tighter game, you can keep some of that balance and now edge players have to think about stopping the run and defending the pass and we just didn’t have that luxury the way that the game went.”

The return to full health of Jack end Mykel Williams played a big role for the Georgia defense — after playing only 17 total snaps over the last two games, Williams was in for 38 plays against Texas and the former consensus five-star prospect was credited with two sacks and two quarterback hurries, according to Pro Football Focus.

Walker, another former consensus five-star prospect, was sensational, too, creating seven pressures and three sacks in the best game of his college career. One long-arm, snatch move by Walker didn’t produce a pressure, but flashed his individual brilliance by getting Texas star junior left tackle Kelvin Banks off balance, an absolute rarity in the outstanding career of Banks.

“They’ve got a good D-line for sure. It’s tough whenever you get down like that and they know we’re going to try to throw the ball — they get in straight pass-rush mode on the edges,” Ewers said.

Sarkisian noted that it wasn’t an ideal situation for his offensive line to be in, although of the seven sacks allowed by the Longhorns, PFF only credited two to the line, one each for Banks and junior right tackle Cam Williams.

Smart also dialed up the right pressures at times. Knowing that Sarkisian likes to create leverage by running condensed formation, the Georgia head coach took advantage of a narrow split to call a cornerback blitz on a 3rd and 5 late in the first quarter with the game still tied at 0-0. Because it came from the blind side, Ewers never saw it coming and fumbled deep in Texas territory. The Bulldogs scored their first touchdown 1:35 later on a four-play, 13-yard drive.

On another play, Georgia stemmed their front with the snap count and produced two free runners when three Texas offensive linemen blocked one defender.

It’s the type of precise, practiced, coordinated movement that can give quarterbacks that thousand-yard stare.

In the 30-15, Texas couldn’t overcome the regression shown by Ewers, the overall number of turnovers, and the relentlessness of Georgia’s attacking defense, especially when the composure broke down for the Longhorns at times, resulting in three false-star penalties — two by Williams and one by Helm on a 4th and 1 at the Georgia 37-yard line down 30-15 early in the fourth quarter. With Texas forced to pass, Ewers fumbled trying to throw, turning the ball over for a final time.

Attempting to avoid the type of full-blown quarterback controversy that can result from decisions like Sarkisian benching Ewers at the end of the first half in favor of the consensus No. 1 prospect in the 2023 recruiting class with the famous last night and a track record of some success, the Texas head coach was unequivocal about Ewers remaining the starter after the game.

“At the end of the day, Quinn’s our starter. I think we’ve got to do a better job around him. I think he would tell you he could play better, but we’ve got to coach better, everybody’s got to be better for our offensive football team to perform better,” Sarkisian said.