On Texas Football: Texas is riding high; Ewers is ‘what we thought;’ defense is becoming dominant
On the latest video episode of On Texas Football’s State of the Program, Inside Texas’s Bobby Burton and Eric Nahlin discuss the Longhorns’ uber-impressive win over Alabama and look ahead the Texas’ game on Saturday against a feisty Wyoming squad.
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Nahlin, the publisher of InsideTexas.com, said the Longhorns played a very clean game and were able the respond when Alabama came back to take the lead in the third quarter.
“Texas played a very clean game in the ways they really needed to,” Nahlin said. “They really won on the margins and they protected the ball. They had far fewer penalties, and less costly penalties. They caught a couple of breaks, of course. The ball bounced their way in that game when it didn’t necessarily bounce their way last year against Alabama.
“And they didn’t blink. When Alabama came back to go up 16-13 in the third quarter, I think everybody got a little nervous. I know I got a little nervous. I kept waiting for that big outlier play and it never came.”
Nahlin reiterated that the team had a lot of confidence within the game plan going into Tuscaloosa.
“And for the most part they were able to execute,” he said. “There’s plenty to correct, which I’m absolutely ecstatic about because one of the themes we wrote about coming into the season was they’d have to improve from game to game.
“Nobody could watch that game in that film room with Steve Sarkisian and the rest of the coaches and come away feeling like Texas played as well as they could. I think overall throughout the season they’re going to improve, and they’re going to look a lot better in November than they did on Sept. 9.”
Burton opined that it’s hard to see how things could be going better for Texas, now ranked No. 4 in the Associated Press poll.
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“So maybe there’s a little hiccup this week, there’s might be a little letdown,” Nahlin said. “We saw that last year, when they played UTSA for the first quarter or so.”
Looking ahead to this Saturday’s game against undefeated Wyoming, Nahlin said he expects the Longhorns to exploit the middle of the field as they did against Alabama.
Burton asked Nahlin which version of quarterback Quinn Ewers shows up for this week’s game.
“I think we’re starting to see the what Ewers is going to become long term,” Nahlin said. “Saturday was the first time I said, ‘this guy’s really got the mentality for the NFL.’ We knew he had the talent we wanted to see him take the next step from a mental approach and in his demeanor on the field. And he couldn’t look more comfortable sitting on the sidelines.”
The Longhorns’ defense has been impressive this season, and – as Burton said – good defense travels, even if it’s just back to Austin. But does that lead to an opponent throwing the entire playbook at Texas just to get something accomplished on offense?
You have to go check out the video for that answer. There’s plenty more to glean, so go check it out in its entirety.
