Texas football is on the verge of winning the SEC Championship in its first year in the conference. But one thing sits in the way: a rematch with the Georgia Bulldogs. To win, Texas will need to have learned from its mistakes and play much better than it did in the teams’ first matchup.
For Texas, the beginning of the season was filled with deep balls and high reception yards for either quarterback, whether junior Quinn Ewers or redshirt freshman Arch Manning, but as the season progressed and with offensive inconsistencies, the Longhorns found comfort in their successful run game. For instance in last week’s battle against Texas A&M, Texas finished with 243 rushing yards but just 218 passing yards.
However, during the first Georgia matchup back in October, Texas was held to a mere 29 rushing yards for the entirety of the game. What seemed to be missing was sophomore running back Quintrevion Wisner, who has broken 150 rushing yards in both of the last two games and has broken 100 yards three times this season.
While there are other aspects of the ground game, such as junior running back Jaydon Blue, Wisner seems to be the key right now for Texas and takes full blame for not being able to get through Georgia’s defense the first time around, despite him leading with 52 yards.
“I didn’t execute when the job was up to me, when the ball was in my hands, when the game was in my hand. I didn’t execute the game plan,” Wisner said, “So, you know, it just falls back on me.”
The Texas offense will also need to take advantage of the defense’s interceptions. The Texas defense has done a tremendous job of holding opponents from scoring, as well as helping the offense by creating turnovers. This season the defense has obtained 18 interceptions including three in their first run-in with Georgia.
Despite the success of the defense, the offense wasn’t able to convert most of those plays into points. With Bulldog fifth-year quarterback Carson Beck throwing 12 total interceptions this season, the offense needs to be able to turn these interceptions into scoring plays, which is something that Georgia found success in the first go-around, scoring 17 points off of Texas turnovers.
“We were two of 15 on third down, one of five on fourth down,” head coach Steve Sarkisian said. “I think we only ran the ball for 29 yards in the game. And so we’re going to have to play a better brand of football offensively, I thought defensively, man, they did their best to kind of stop the bleeding.”
Another aspect of Texas’ game that needs to be contemplated is who the Longhorns ultimately want in that quarterback spot. While there have been a lot of social media posts against Ewers this season and begging for Manning to receive more playing time, against Georgia, Ewers is the optimal choice.
When Ewers went down with an injury early in the season, forcing Manning to take over, people were impressed with Manning’s agility and precise throwing ability. However, he was beating low-caliber teams like Lousiana-Monore. When Manning was put in briefly in the first Georgia matchup with an intense Bulldog defensive line, he went three of six for 19 yards and was sacked multiple times, before being forced to come out.
With this Georgia defense, it is best to have an experienced veteran in the pocket, such as Ewers.
If Texas can keep these aspects of the game in check, it should be able to pull out a revenge-filled win over the Georgia Bulldogs this Saturday in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Lucky us, we get it. We get a new challenge. We get an opportunity at the Georgia Bulldogs. They’re a really good football team. They have our respect …,” junior defensive back Michael Taaffe said about being able to play Georgia again. “I’m a competitor, so I hate to lose more than I like to win.
