{"id":66496,"date":"2022-09-05T09:16:02","date_gmt":"2022-09-05T09:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/texas-vs-ulm-quinn-ewers-debuts-and-jatavion-sanders-breaks-out\/"},"modified":"2022-09-05T09:16:02","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T09:16:02","slug":"texas-vs-ulm-quinn-ewers-debuts-and-jatavion-sanders-breaks-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/texas-vs-ulm-quinn-ewers-debuts-and-jatavion-sanders-breaks-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas vs. ULM: Quinn Ewers debuts and Ja’Tavion Sanders breaks out"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Game one, game won. With a superb showing from the Texas Longhorns in their dominating 52-10 victory over the visiting Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks, the Texas college football season is off and running. <\/p>\n

Yes, Texas entered the game with a 99-percent chance to win according to ESPN FPI. And yes, Texas was a hefty 37.5-point favorite at the time of kickoff. And yes, ULM isn’t quite <\/em>a team expected to make any real noise this year.<\/p>\n

However, the end result is as good as any that a rational Longhorn fan could ask for \u2014 after all, a wise man once said \u201cGood teams win, but great teams cover.\u201d <\/p>\n

Amidst the win and backing of Vegas’ greatest minds and odds-makers, the Longhorns also ushered in a new era with Quinn Ewers making his first collegiate start (and promptly got his car towed while doing so).<\/p>\n

Now, I’m by no means an \u201cExpert\u201d in this field, hence the self-proclaimed title of Armchair QB. However, here’s a few things I noticed from last night’s win:<\/p>\n

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The potential is there for Quinn Ewers, but he’s still just a freshman. <\/strong>Let’s go ahead and address the mullet-sporting elephant in the room. You won’t find many major blemishes if you comb through last night’s game, but perhaps the biggest one was Ewers’ interception thrown on the Longhorns’ first offensive drive of the game. At that time, I know what you may have been thinking \u201cFor three years, we court and recruit this ‘prodigy’ and it turns out the dude is just Garrett Gilbert 2.0?\u201d <\/p>\n

For all the hoopla surrounding Ewers’ first start on the Forty Acres, it was to be expected to see a few jitters and mistakes made. While many Longhorns may have expected a coronation of the quarterback who would Texas back into its next set of glory years, the second throw Ewers made that was intercepted was also the second throw he’s attempted in a game since 2020 at Southlake Carroll.<\/p>\n

Ewers was never going to vault into Heisman consideration last night. If he torched ULM for 400 yards, well then it was just ULM. Instead, what he showed was poise, progress, and promise. He didn’t post any highlight-worthy dimes to the end zone like we saw in the spring game with Isaiah Neyor<\/a>. He had a couple overthrows, the deep ball was n’t really on point (his feet were hardly ever set on the ground when throwing more than five yards downfield), and of course, throwing across your body to force a ball into traffic could often result in an interception.<\/p>\n

It would have been easy to see Ewers get rattled after throwing an early interception, and for that to snowball as additional mistakes were made. But after that first drive, Ewers led the Longhorn offense with a 16-of-22 passing performance with 225 yards and two touchdowns. He made some really impressive throws we’ve seen Texas quarterbacks struggle to get away with in the past, including this impressive 25-yard strike up the seam between defenders to tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders \u2014 his best throw of the night. <\/p>\n

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