First season in the conference and a chance to win it. Texas Longhorns came agonizingly close to clinching the SEC Championship, but in the end, Georgia proved why they are the big dawgs! Looking back, Texas could have won yesterday’s game without some silly mistakes. They dominated the first half, managing 260 yards of offense to Georgia’s 54 yards. However, on the scoreboard, nothing to show for as they led by 6-3 (two field goals). In the aftermath of the loss, the obvious scapegoat is Quinn Ewers. Then, there is the perennial question of Arch Manning. Should Coach Sark have gone with the latter?

On the December 7 episode of the ‘Nightcap,‘ Shannon Sharpe and Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson react to college football conference championship week. Discussing the SEC championship game, the duo addressed the debate about Ewers and Manning. What’s the context? Well, Quinn Ewers didn’t have a good game. He started off well, but at various points, it looked like the Texas QB1 was missing the obvious passes. Remember that issue of Ewers not being able to see the field? Yeah, that visited him again. Naturally, there were murmurs about a similar substitute as to what happened against Georgia in the regular season.

“I know a lot of people thought like, you know what? I guarantee you, they probably thought that man, if we had Arch Manning, that’s a game that we could have won. I mean, but I know when Arch Manning comes in the game, I’m thinking, You know, I am thinking when he comes in the game, I say it is run.” Sharpe said.

More than anything, the latest ploy by Coach Sark to deploy Arch Manning has made the offense predictable. You spot Manning lining up, and you can assume that it will be a run play. Within that, Coach Sark improvised in the first half, but overall, it hasn’t worked. This isn’t new. Following Quinn Ewers’ early season injury and Arch Manning’s one of the few remarkable performances, people went crazy for him. They believed Manning was the QB they had been waiting for. In almost every game after that, head coach Sarkisian either showed faith in Manning or Ewers, mostly Ewers. But none of them paid back to that decision. At some point, Texas fans go wild hyping up Manning, saying he could outnumber Ewers if given a chance. 

“Yeah, the funny thing about it is, when Arch played early in the season when Ewers was out, Arch could not only run, yeah. Arch was throwing that thing like crazy, yeah. He was on all over,” Shannon further said. What changed then? Well, the change has come from the head coach. He is relying on Ewers to run the overall offense. Considering Ewers is nursing a leg injury, he is unable to do the rushing duties. That’s where Manning is being used. That helped the Longhorns against the Aggies when Arch managed a rushing TD. 

Having said all that, despite Ewers having some bad moments during the game, he isn’t really the person to blame. “I mean, Texas had nobody but to blame for themselves. They had two misfield goals. Yeah, they fall for the goddamn fake punt. First of all, you have to understand situational football. You just got a situation when you went down and scored, right? The last thing the team wants to do is give you the ball right back. Yeah, put your punt. Safe. Punt, safe. What are you going to try? Where are you going?” Sharpe said. 

Texas kicker Bert Auburn had one of the hardest days of his career, as even though he hit the game-changer field goal within the last minute to tie the game, the senior had two crucial misses that changed the results. First was that 42-yarder, which Auburn pushed left, followed by a 51-yarder, for that Auburn was left yet another time! Moving forward, fake punt follies were another reason for their loss.

Georgia’s fake punt was straight-up wild. Tied 13-13, starting punter Brett Thorson was out of the game in the third quarter while tackling Silas Bolden. Enter the backup punter, Charlie Ham. ba*l’s near midfield, and Texas should have seen the fake coming. Like seriously? Arian Smith just went in motion, but UT did nothing. Snap goes to Bobo, he pitches to Smith, and boom-first down. All that drama! Moving forward, what does Sarkisian’s QB1 say after the game?

Quinn Ewers’ on Texas’s loss against Georgia

Quinn Ewers ended up managing 358 yards on 27 of 46 passes with one touchdown and two picks, but all that fell short as Texas fell 19-22 to Georgia in the SEC championship. Meanwhile, Steve Sarkisian’s Starboy is quite clear about their mistakes. “We shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times and got into some third-and-longs that were just hard to get out of,” Ewers admitted.

Without their starting LT Kelvin Banks Jr., the Texas Longhorns struggled under pressure, and their frustration hit the boiling point with the Texas fans, who started calling for Arch Manning. However, Ewers is confident about his squad, saying, “Our culture is built for this… it’s 10% what happens and 90% how you react.” 

Currently, the Longhorns are looking to regroup for a first-round playoff game. However, mostly from all across the football field, penalties yardage, key drops, several sacks, interceptions, and falling for trick play were some of the main reasons why Texas fell short against the Bulldogs.