Steve Sarkisian praises Quinn Ewers for bounce-back performance against Vanderbilt, despite interceptions

After Texas eked past Vanderbilt, 27-24, to get a bounce-back win on Saturday, head coach Steve Sarkisian assessed the efforts of starting quarterback Quinn Ewers. All-in-all, pretty good, Sarkisian said.

Ewers did have a pair of turnovers, an interception in each half, both coming off tipped passes that set up the Commodores with short fields. But outside of those two blemishes — which Sarkisian wasn’t holding against his quarterback much, anyways — the Longhorns’ gunslinger delivered the sort of performance Texas will need from him going forward.

“Well I thought he showed great composure and I really thought he played well,” Sarkisian said to SEC Network sideline reporter Alyssa Lang. “Some times you can’t control balls getting tipped in the air, the right place at the right time for them. But at the end of the day, I thought he played really well, was efficient, got the ball to our playmakers when they needed it.” 

Ewers finished 27-of-37 for 288 yards and three touchdowns, along with the pair of interceptions. He was also sacked four times.

And Ewers was not the only one who needed a bounce-back after Texas entered Saturday licking its wounds from a loss to Georgia.

“It was a hard week, obviously,” Sarkisian said. “When you lose a game the way we did last week and to work yourself back, I thought our guys again showed a lot of grit. It’s unfortunate, two tipped balls, we gave them two short fields and the game got close all of a sudden. But I thought our guys played pretty well tonight.”

Texas also needed its mettle right to the very end, as a late Vanderbilt touchdown cut the margin to a field goal, and the Commodores still had a chance at an onside to try and set up a game-tying, or perhaps go-ahead drive.

Instead, Sarkisian coaxed his team into one final moment to win the game.

“Well just stay composed. We practice it all the time,” Sarkisian said. “You never know when those types of situations come up at the end of the game. I thought our guys showed great composure. They executed it beautifully, nice job finishing out the ball game.”