Wait - what? He played in Tuscaloosa last year and was healthy the whole season and was good-to-great the rest of the way. He did get injured against Alabama at home in 2022. But "the dude up until that point" involved 1 career game ... against Louisiana-Monroe. He came back from that injury to win 49-0 against OU and then have another great game against ISU. And then sucked the rest of the season.
Blueprint on how to stop and pressure Ewers is out now Also offensive line is a penalty machine We can lose to anybody
Just, not an impressive win at all. At one point in the first half it looked like we were gonna curbstomp Vandy and I was starting to feel good again, we ended up just hanging on to eek one out. With every passing week the machine we saw in Ann Arbor looks like an aberration. Ewers is just a game manager. We drew an extremely easy schedule this season with Georgia looking like the only actual top level team we play. Unless there's a substantial uptick in performance I can't see them winning 3 straight against top opposition even if we make the playoff.
Texas wouldn't play 3 straight against top opposition in the playoffs - there aren't 12 elite teams in college football this year. Even Georgia hasn't looked good at times, squeaking by Kentucky and struggling against an awful Mississippi State team. Texas isn't great, but it would also be hard to find more than 1 or 2 teams a clear tier better than them, and probably a handful of teams in the same tier. There's pretty high likelihood there's 0 or 1 undefeated teams by the end of the year. NIL and the transfer portal have made college football into a lot of parity because none of the top teams have depth or pipelines - freshman no longer have much reason to sit for several years.
You play the teams on your schedule, and you schedule them years in advance. UT had Bama and Georgia scheduled before the move to the SEC happened. @ Michigan this year, @Ohio State next year, then OSU comes to Austin the next. Michigan comes to Austin on the back half of home/home in 2027
The Vandy game felt like a repeat of 2023 specifically the UH, TCU, and Kansas State games where we got out to a big lead, the offense clammed up, and we hung on to win. It's not a great feeling. I realize this is an old man level take, but Quinn just seems... slow. His reads and passes have no zip and everything feels like it's happening a split-second too late. Some of that is on the receivers; none of them beat Vanderbilt down the field and Quinn had to rely on short passes. But, I'm not confident he'd hit them deep if they were open. Our two remaining road games are really tough. Arkansas hates us and I'm already having flashbacks of when Hudson Card got wrecked in Fayetteville. A&M is going to tear families apart.
Giving up 7 sacks to Georgia was horrible but understandable. Turning around and giving up another 4 to Vanderbilt on top of all the penalties was just bad. I'm blitzing all day long if I'm an opposing defense until the OL and Ewers shows they can handle it. A LOT to work on this bye week to say the least.
Is it safe to say if UT does not win the next 3 (UF, @Arkansas, Kentucky), the season finale at A&M becomes a must-win to make the playoff? I want that to happen so the intrigue and drama going into that game goes nuclear. I want it to be the most compelling CFB game of the year by a mile. The perfect Thanksgiving Saturday evening treat!
Yup the prevailing thought right now is that an 11-2 record gets you in the CFP. The game is already going to be insane, if both teams are 1-loss and fighting for a spot in the conference championship, it will be absolutely “nuclear” as you put it.
Depending on how tiebreakers work out, it's possible for UT/A&M to play each other 3 straight times. If UT beats A&M, they could theoretically meet again the next week in the SEC Championship game, and then face each other in the 2nd round of the playoffs (one team would get a bye; the other would have to play another team in between).
After not playing for 13 years, this would be hilarious. I will say, I'm not confident about going into aggyland and dealing with what will surely be a rabid environment.
The only way UT has a shot at a championship is if Arch is at QB, Ewers isn't it...too immobile. Just blitz him and he folds. DD
