Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers dominated in Texas’ 38-24 victory over Clemson in the first round of the College Football Playoff. After many Texas fans called for him to be benched for what they considered a “poor performance,” he shined when the season was on the line.

When Arch Manning started to commit to more games, many believed that Steve Sarkisian was leaning toward benching Ewers, but they couldn’t have been more wrong. With two great quarterbacks, Sarkisian wanted to give teams a different look and give Ewers a breather in short-yardage situations.

Even with the addition of the Manning package, Ewers shined. He has thrown a touchdown pass in 25 straight games, the longest streak of any quarterback in the country.

He threw for 202 yards, a touchdown, and was picked off once by a deflected ball against Clemson. Most importantly, he led Texas to victory, including two touchdown drives that ended in the red zone, something Texas struggled with against Georgia. Ewers called audibles on two touchdowns and running back Jaydon Blue got into the end zone both times, which Sarkisian revealed after the game.

Sarkisian had high praise for Ewers as he has made it clear that he will be his starting quarterback. While everyone questioned Sarkisian, his decision paid off as his veteran quarterback played one of his most complete games of the season.

One area where Sarkisian mentioned improvement was Ewers’ ability to make reads in the red zone.

“I thought it was a great touchdown pass, and reading from Quinn and Gunnar, it was a little adjustment to Gunnar’s route based on coverage that we didn’t fully anticipate,” Sarkisian said. “But these are two guys who trust each other. You could feel Quinn’s trust in Gunnar, so it was all great.”

Ewers had a similar change in his interpretation of Blues touchdowns, but on those he changed the play at the line of scrimmage. While he was given the freedom to call audibles in practice, Sarkisian didn’t know if he would actually do so in the game.

“The interesting thing about it was, I think it was maybe two days before the game when we gave him that look and expected it might be the odd call, so he checked it out very early on and I said, they might not give it to you this early, and we had a motion to do so,” Sarkisian said. “I said maybe you need to check it after the application and then check the game. In fact, it happened tonight. He waved to Davis and then he saw it and then he checked it and got going. This is just time together.”, time on the task, him and me, and he trusts when we tell him certain things, like it could happen like this, he trusts it and then carries it out
It. Kind of a cool moment because when you have a starter who’s been in your system for three years, he’s very comfortable doing things like that.”

As a three-year starter, this was most likely Ewers’ final game at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. But now he’s just focused on getting his team one win closer to the national championship. Last year, Ewers and Texas were just one game short of reaching this stage. This year the team is stronger and better than ever and playing their best football.

While Ewers doesn’t forget last year’s loss in the College Football Playoff semifinals, he is putting it behind him and using it as motivation moving forward.

“Yeah, I think it motivates the whole team,” Ewers said. “We were so close last year, a few games away from going to the national championship, and who knows what will happen then. But you can’t live in this dream. We’re just trying to win 1-0 every day and every week and then we’ll see where that takes us.

Now the red-hot Ewers and Texas face Arizona State, the Big 12 champion, in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Atlanta. The SEC runner-up is a heavy favorite over the Sun Devils, and Ewers and the Longhorns are looking forward to the challenge.

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