On Texas Football: Looking at the quarterbacks for Texas and Alabama
On the most recent video episode of On Texas Football’s Quarterback Room, Inside Texas’s Gerry Hamilton and regular contributor Rod Babers discuss the starting quarterbacks, Texas’ Quinn Ewers and Alabama’s Jalen Milroe, in advance of the teams’ titanic dustup on Saturday in Tuscaloosa.
[Join Inside Texas today and get 50% off an annual subscription!]
Hamilton said Texas coach Steve Sarkisian remarked on Thursday that Saturday’s game is kind of a benchmark, a measuring stick, of where the Texas program is at and where this team is at this year. And he felt that way for Alabama, too.
Both teams are going to walk out of Saturday’s game with a pretty good feeling of where their quarterbacks are at it.
“I want to lay this out for Texas fans,” Hamilton said. “This will be Quinn Ewers’ 12th start of his college career – this is a full season’s work after Saturday. Jalen Milroe is even less experienced – he’s started just two game and played in four.”
In evaluation of Ewers’ performance against Rice, Babers said that game showed what everyone already knew – the sophomore quarterback’s strength is on short and intermediate throws.
Top 10
- 1New
Cam Newton
Arch Manning, Saban to Cowboys
- 2Hot
Arch Manning NIL
Texas QB signs with Red Bull
- 3
ACC, ESPN extension
New deal reached through 2036
- 4
John Calipari return
Rick Pitino encourages cheers
- 5
SEC softball poll
Predicted order of finish
Get the On3 Top 10 to your inbox every morning
By clicking "Subscribe to Newsletter", I agree to On3's Privacy Notice, Terms, and use of my personal information described therein.
“Sark really built the game plan around the strength of Ewers,” Baber explained. “Some people will say ‘well doesn’t every quarterback become more efficient in short and the intermediate passes?’ But with Ewers’ exceptional arm talent, he is extremely accurate and can get the ball there and with good ball placement. He’s almost perfect a lot of the times on those short to intermediate throws. That’s where he’s gonna make his money.”
Baber opines that Sarkisian could use the pass to open up the run against Alabama.
“I think Sark in this game, you’re gonna see him open up the passing game,” Babers said. “And if they do that with the short to intermediate game, you’re going to see Ewers shine. But you gotta use a lot of different conceptual signatures – use the screen game, misdirection, pre-snap motion, bunch formations, empty. You use a lot of the cheat codes.”
Babers said that Alabama coach Nick Saban knows “all too well” about Sarkisian’s playcalling tendencies and how the Longhorns will try to play to Ewers’ strengths.
“Everybody knows Texas is struggling with the deep ball,” Babers explained. “I wonder if situationally Alabama is gonna flood those short to intermediate routes. Basically you’re not gonna give it to Ewers but Alabama is going to try to force Texas to beat them over the top. It’s almost like in basketball when somebody has a bad shooter. You let them have the shot. They’re not gonna allocate resources to defend something that you’re having difficulty with.”
There’s plenty more information to glean from the video in its entirety, so go check it out.
