Agreed. In Sark's only defense of the run, the two fumbles in the run game were killers -- Washington seemed to accept they were getting gashed, and went hard to strip the ball. The hindsight game comes down to redzone execution in the 4th quarter. If they get the TD instead of the fieldgoal on the 2nd to last possession, they're in position to win with a field goal. They then had 4 opportunties from just outside the 10 to score and they couldn't do it. Given how badly Texas was outplayed, it's hard to imagine they had that good of a chance at the end, but just couldn't quite pull it off. I was disappointed how the team seemed to be poorly prepared and not ready for the moment. The amount of self inflicted penalties was odd, especially from some of the vets. I put a lot of that on the coaching. Also -- why on earth did we keep sending out a kick returner with a hand cast -- especially when Blue was actually returning the ball well!? Ewers' progress has been good, but uneven. His body language the whole game seemed off.
The coaching staff definitely came up short yesterday, no real disagreement there. But the season was unquestionably a success, and Sark deserves credit for that even if they bombed yesterday. Hopefully they learn from this season and can keep us in regular contention
Ewers was one play away from the championship in the last 15 years. OK, great. But he didn't do it. My take it is UT still chooses Arch over Ewers (if he comes back) - it's a possibility.
JJ McCarthy was close last year and didn't do it either. This year, your national championship will be between a 3rd year and 6th year QB. The last 2 titles were won by Stenson Bennett, who I believe was a 5th and 6th year QB. Prior to that was Mac Jones, who I believe had been at Alabama for 4 or 5 years. The odds of a freshman or even sophomore QB winning a national title are low - you have the occasional Tua, but experience matters - a lot. Teams constantly looking for "the next big thing" never tend to win anything. Oklahoma, for example, is going to massively regret letting Gabriel go in exchange for their hotshot freshman next year. He may be great - but he'll play like a freshman and do stupid freshman things. Arch will do the same and likely cost you a game or two. Even Vince Young took several years to become Vince Young. Ewers may or may not learn and get better, but we know his floor is pretty damn high and his teams were able to go toe-to-toe with top-10 caliber teams in Alabama, Oklahoma, and Washington. Your take was that you don't see anyway UT sticks with Ewers.
Ewers is a solid QB. Not someone whose going to beat one of the better teams in the country by himself. Is any QB in college as good as Stroud was last year? Weak group imo. Penix is arguably the best, but he himself struggles mightily when he is being pressured. If you have a hot QB, you have to keep him off the field. The Texans use to know this all to well when the division was held hostage by forehead in Indy. As you mentioned. The defense of Washington was not able to even withstand ground against Texas ground game. They should have went for the Sugar Bowl rushing record instead of letting a Ewers try to break passing records. This isn't hindsight. I watched the game, and it was apparent on the first two handoffs of the game. Washington's fresh D Line looked dis interested in shedding Texas blocks while they were getting moved. You think Jim Harbaugh isn't going to pick up on this next week. Insane really. But yes, even despite the self inflected stuff/turnovers... they almost won the game. That was a huge upset imo. Texas was that much better physically in the trench and had no business losing that game.
Disappointing. Sad to see how we were able to get 0 pressure on them while their one defender, Trice, was able to create way more havoc himself compared to us. It's a good thing we are getting Collin Simmons and Trey Moore next season. Ewers did fine. He is not the QB that will let you win in a shootout with a 6th-year senior who was on absolute fire, two fumbles caused by your top two RBs, and a countless number of penalties. You take away one of the key differences, Ewers played well enough to win this game. Next season isn't a guarantee with us going to the SEC. Thankfully there will be 12 teams that'll make the playoffs but that'll only increase the variance and parity for college football - similar to MLB IMO.
Don't know where you got the "Injuries have nothing to do with reliability" from what I said but I didn't. "Reliability" has to do with ball security, missing assignments and such. And I TOTALLY disagree that college coaches don't do it (conservative route) more than pros do.
The offense wasn't really the problem. Sure, there were some boneheaded playcalls, like Sark throwing to the flat at the end when we should've gone for 3-4 shots in the endzone. Or the frequent 1st down passes when the run game was going well, but they put up 31 points. Fairly respectable. The offense could've played better. Ewers was off early but had some good passes and some drops. Worthy or Mitchell didn't get much separation to help out. The big problem was the defense. There was no pressure on the QB. Credit to UW because their OL is one of the best in the country. Another problem was the secondary. They were frequently beat, and as with all season, they don't recover or never play the ball. I can't remember any pass breakup this season. Still happy with the season overall. Next year will be tough in the SEC. We'll probably lose Worthy and Mitchell. I hope Brooks comes back at the same level and Baxter improves. DL needs to get better and DBs improve with experience.
Ewers wasn’t perfect but he wasn’t the reason we lost the game. Kid is 20 years old playing his 22nd college football game and has already led us to our most successful season since Colt. He’d be the youngest and least experienced QB in the draft but he needs to move on now? Further development is the best thing for him and this team, possibly for Arch too…
Couldn’t you say the same about Kirby and Saban early on? DeBoer? Harbaugh? Like Sark, these guys only got the job because of the success or lack thereof in the past. But maybe they got their “flowers” because they did a pretty damn good job building and coaching up their programs? I wanted to run more the first half but we found a way to square things off. Baxter’s fumble and a penalty really killed us in the 3rd because we found ourselves down 13 going into the 4th for which any team has to basically abandon the run game. To say we easily win the game if we run the ball more is an overstatement. That UW team is damn good and I’ll be very surprised if UM “wipes them off the map.”
Idk , I kinda think they need to start the Archie era IF he's ready... I'm just not a Sark believer... There was absolutely no reason to not run the ball down their throat the 1st half... I'm still pissed about that more than anything else
It took 3 appearances for Michigan to finally win one. We need to not be overly emotional after this one . Even though we are still pissed about it. I think even with the poor cornerback play, we had a red zone issues pop up again. no way we shouldn’t be able to score on Washington in 4 tries from the 11. I mean Vince young could have done it
Most UT fans I’ve talked to seem to be more disappointed than pissed. Some want to blame Sark, others want to blame Ewers, but UW was simply the better team and have been for the majority of the season. That is why they are undefeated and playing for it all next week. No shame in saying it IMO.
Worthy has nothing left to do at the college level. No Brainer for him just like it was for Bijan last season.
