Sophmore Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers went 19-30 and passed for 260 yards with three touchdowns in the win against the Rice Owls last week. The Longhorns converted only 6 of 15 on third downs and went 1 for 3 on fourth down attempts. Ewers had some trouble connecting with receivers on several passes downfield, which inevitably led to chatter about his perceived inability to do so. Despite the win, the capability of the Texas offense had yet to be seen.
On Saturday night at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ewers flipped the script.
He led his offense to the program’s first regular season road win over a Top-3 ranked team in more than 50 years. The Longhorns, behind Ewers, defeated Alabama 34-24. He threw for 349 yards and three touchdowns which included several deep balls for touchdowns to Xavier Worthy (44 yards) and AD Mitchell (39 yards).
Texas amassed 454 yards of total offense against Nick Saban’s defense on Saturday night. The Longhorns were fairly solid on 3rd and 4th down (combined 9 for 21).
More importantly Quinn Ewers proved he can throw the deep ball and lead his team to a big win. There is still a lot of football left in the season but Texas has all of its preseason goals clear in sight. The upset win over Alabama was a big step towards accomplishing those goals.
Here is what Ewers had to say after the big win for the Longhorns in Tuscaloosa.
On what the 34-24 victory of Alabama means to him
“I’m so fired up right now. We worked so hard this offseason and for it to finally show, it’s just so special. I don’t think it’s really quite sunk in yet, what we did here, but I know we’re going to enjoy this one. I couldn’t be more fired up.”
After Texas fell behind to Alabama 16-13 but managed to respond
“I think that just goes to show how mature we are as a team. After how much adversity we went through last year, and to learn from that and be able to bounce back, like you said our offense didn’t flinch and the defense didn’t either. I couldn’t be more proud of these guys.”
After leaving last year’s game with an injury but being able to play and finish the game
“It’s super special. Like you said, I wasn’t able to play the full game last year, so to come out here and do what we did, I’m so proud of the way we attacked this game.”
