Ultimately, you can't no-show for an entire half of football and expect to beat a team like Georgia.
Simple as that.
The No.1 ranked Texas Longhorns gave a valiant effort in the second half, but valiant efforts are the type of things that you use to describe efforts from teams that come up short. That's what happened to Texas.
It came up short. Georgia was better over 60 minutes.
In a big-boy game with the entire nation watching and the largest pool of elite recruiting talent to ever sit in the stadium at one time in the history of the program on hand to watch it, the Longhorns just laid a gigantic egg in the first half. .
This wasn't about being ready for the SEC. This was about being ready for a heavyweight title fight. Texas played the part of Michael Spinx on Saturday night. It's one thing to beat up on Gerry Cooney (Oklahoma), Steffen Tangstad (Mississippi State) and an 87-year old Larry Holmes (Michigan), but it's another thing to face a prime Mike Tyson (Georgia) when he's thirsty for blood.
The difference between Texas and Spinx is that Texas didn't retire after the first half. It came back and gave the Dawgs a scare. But, that's all the Longhorns did. It gave them a scare, but never quite caused them to fear for their life.
Credit to Georgia. My goodness, what a performance they delivered tonight. They earned it.
This isn't a season killer for the Longhorns.
It's impossible to know what this means for competing for the SEC title, but that seems like a far-fetched worry on this night. From 30,000 feet up, the Longhorns came into this game with a mulligan or two as it relates to making the playoffs.
It used one tonight.
In all honesty, it probably has another to use if it needs one, as I would bet every dollar I have in the bank that a 10-2 Texas team will make the playoffs.
Tonight might have been an unmitigated disaster for 30 minutes, but there's a lot of football left to be played. Look at Clemson. They got slaughtered by Georgia and it's kind of an afterthought at this point in the season. People won't forget this molly-whopping, but it doesn't have to define this season. Whether Texas will be ready when the moment comes is a question worth asking, but bigger games than this one will be played before this season is over.
Take a deep breath.
(Other thoughts on the game...)
* Peyton, we feel you. Believe me, we feel you.
* Quinn Ewers wasn't good enough. Period. It's still his team. He salvaged his dignity in the second half, but he got benched in the biggest home game of his career. It simply wasn;'t good enough.
* I saw that Dr. Pepper "I don't need a back-up" commercial for the first time in a month in the lead-up to the start of the game and it hit a little bit different than the first time I'd seen it... and that was BEFORE the game started. I'm not going to make a big deal out of it, but for the record... that was a bad idea. It was tempting fate and was full of downside. Just saying...
* Jahdae Barron made a lot of money tonight. What a performance.
* Georgia went 89 yards with the pressure of the world in its face and punched it in on 4th and goal from the one-yard line. Respect.
* Texas had 38 yards of offense in the first half. Georgia had 49 yards off of sacks.
* Texas was 0-7 on third downs in the first half. Woof.
* Here's a look at Ewers by quarter...
1Q: 5 of 8 for 17 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT (80.4 rating)
2Q: 1 of 4 for 0 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT (-25.00)
3Q: 7 of 10 for 90 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT (211.6 rating)
4Q: 12 of 21 for 104 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT (98.7 rating)
* The time management in the fourth quarter was confusing. At one point, almost a minute came off the clock between a targeting call being confirmed with 7:06 remaining and an incomplete pass to Matthew Golden (6:15 remaining).
* Throwing stuff on the field created a delay that overturned a terrible PI call. That actually happened.
* On both of the sacks that Kelvin Banks allowed tonight, Ewers held the ball between 3-5 seconds. On one of the sacks, Banks threw his guy into the ground and Ewers ran into him. It was just one of those nights.
* I thought this team really missed David Gbenda in the first half. UGA mauled Liona Lefau in the run game.
* Andrew Mukuba came to Texas for big moments to take his career to the next level. That interception in the first quarter made him some money. That's a pick for him against both Michigan and Georgia. Hated to see him get hurt.
* Sark wins the toss and defers. That ended up being a really smart move.
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