Ladies and gentlemen, let the Hudson Card Era of Texas Football begin.
In a move that shouldn't be the least bit shocking, the great off-season quarterback battle of 2021 reached a conclusion going into the weekend when Steve Sarkisian told Card and Casey Thompson that he had chosen the second-year player from Lake Travis as his starter.
After nearly 30 practices in front of the new Texas staff, which included about a half-dozen scrimmages and the spring game, it's not a decision that was built on the back of a small sample size. Whatever preconceived notions that might have existed inside of Sarkisian's mind before the last five months couldn't possibly make a dent on the notions that exist after hundreds of hours of up-close and personal evaluation.
Card won the job. Simple as that.
Now it's time for Sarkisian to do what's best for the team and his young starting quarterback - give him the keys, somewhat get out of the way and let the kid spread his wings. With all due respect to Casey Thompson, who is talented enough that Sarkisian is going out of his way in the last four days to paint a picture of the situation that would entice his back-up to stick around this season, the Texas coaches need to be focused on creating the best possible environment for success for their new starter.
Nothing is more important for the long-term success of this program than the development of Card. If he doesn't turn into a first- or second-day NFL draft pick following the 2022 or 2023 season, it's possible that the Sarkisian era won't ever quite get off the ground. Trust me, that's not hyperbole. I've said a lot of things about Card's upside as a player, but if he doesn't reach it, we might be talking about the middle of the decade before this team can get over the hump of perennial averageness.
Therefore, this isn't the time for quarterbacks rotating in the first half. As scary as it might sound to have Charles Wright be your starter in a world where something happens to Card and Thompson isn't around, that truth can't lead to undermining what is best for the player that you believe is the better player.
Almost 21 years ago, another second-year Longhorns quarterback opened the season against Louisiana-Lafayette as the starter and threw a pick-six in the first quarter as the Longhorns fell behind in a game they eventually won 52-10. You could cut the anxiety at DKR that day with a butter knife.
Texas was almost in the same situation in 2000 as it finds itself now, even if Major Applewhite is significantly more accomplished than Thompson in this apples to bananas comparison. It needed Chris Simms to turn into a great player or it was never going to get out of the bridesmaid grind that Mack Brown had historically landed both feet in. No, it wasn't fair to Applewhite that his presence undermined the development of a player that eventually started for an NFL playoff team.
Yet, that happened.
Simms' career ended in 2002 and it was impossible not to wish he'd been able to have one more year of eligibility. Consider the final five games of Simms' career:
at Nebraska - 29 of 47 for 419 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT and a 146.6 rating
vs. Baylor - 18 of 23 for 254 yards, 3 TD, 1 INT and a 205.4 rating
at Texas Tech - 24 of 37 for 345 yards, 4 TD, 1 INT and a 173.5 rating
vs. Texas A&M - 16 of 24 for 278 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT and a 205.2 rating
vs. LSU - 15 of 28 for 269 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT and a 150.7 rating
At that exact moment, that five-game stretch might have represented the best five-game stretch that any passer in school history had ever known. A 172 efficiency rating over the final five games was ridiculous back in 2002. Consider that Carson Palmer won the Heisman that year with a 149 efficiency rating. With the Applewhite shadow gone, Simms was finally able to spread his own wings that allowed him to begin to reach his upside. Imagine how different the 2001 and 2002 seasons might have looked if his development process hadn't been so problematic.
This can't happen with Card. If he throws a pick-six on Saturday in the first quarter, the response can't be for everyone to look at Thompson and wonder if a change is coming.
No player in this program is more important than Card. If Arch Manning in Austin is going to be a thing, it's going to take Card putting up some numbers and letting Manning know that he's not taking some kind of ridiculous chance by coming to Texas over Alabama and Clemson. You want Evan Stewart? Card might be the only guy that can truly deliver him because without the passing offense looking a little like Alabama's from last season, it isn't going to happen.
Sarkisian has had a fair competition that gave Thompson every chance to win the job. Of the roughly 30 practices that the team has had under Sarkisian, Thompson started 2/3 of them. Thompson took all of the first-team reps in the spring game. When practice started in August, he had the pole position through the first scrimmage.
Now that the competition has been decided, it's no longer time to be fair. It's time to selfishly commit to doing what's right for the Texas football program and in this case it means clearing whatever needs to be cleared to help Card reach his optimal performance levels.
No. 2 - About Casey Thompson ...
As the president of the Card Fan Club, I know it must feel to some like being pro-Card means being anti-Thompson, but I don't look at it like that at all.
Thompson is really good. With three years of eligibility remaining, I firmly believe that he's going to be a very good starting quarterback somewhere, even if it's not automatically in Austin. I've said for weeks that I'm not sure that he would lead Texas to any less of a record in 2021 if given the keys to the offense.
We've now reached a line in the sand moment that he's going to need to work through.
From what has been relayed to me, the plan inside of Team Thompson was to begin the process of finding a future home immediately if he didn't win the job. If the decision is between committing to the Longhorns for the next 12 games in hopes of the door reopening for him or committing to working out his future over the course of the next two seasons beyond this one, there have been vibes that the latter will win out.
No matter the decision, he can't save a year of eligibility at this point.
You can argue that if Thompson is going to transfer, he needs to wait until the 2021 season is complete so that he can pick out the best possible solution for himself with as much data to aid the decision as possible. If that's the case, working with Sarkisian for the next four months and getting as much out of that experience as possible makes more sense than the alternative, which would have him finishing up this semester as a grad student and not participating in organized high-level football team activities.
Also, I might be the President of the Card Fan Club, but that doesn't mean that I can't acknowledge that there's probably a better chance this season that Thompson will be needed at some point to win a game or two than not. Card has never played a season of college football, which means we can't give him the benefit of the doubt that he'll survive the entire season without some kind of injury until he proves that he can do so.
The professional decision is to stick out this season on the team.
If we're going to do some storytelling from the great early 2000s Simms/Applewhite wars, we should also mention that the player Thompson most gets compared to is former Texas great James Brown, who lost the starting quarterback battle to Shea Morenz, only to get on the field due to injury, taking his job and essentially walking him out the door when he was drafted by the Yankees the next year.
Crazy stuff can happen so easily that it's not even crazy.
No. 3 - DRINK THIS KOOL-AID, BABY!!!!
Forget about the offensive line and defense for a moment because I just want to focus on the following skill position talent going into the opener.
QB: Second-year freshman Hudson Card
RB: Sophomore Bijan Robinson, junior Roschon Johnson and junior Keilan Robinson
WR: Junior Jordan Whittington, junior Joshua Moore and true freshman Xavier Worthy
TE: Junior Jared Wiley, freshman Gunnar Helm, freshman J'Tavian Sanders and freshman Juan Davis
Two things stand out about this group of players ...
1. Unless Whittington or Moore go absolute bonkers on the field this year, every one of those players should be back in 2022.
2. It's probably the best group of young offensive personnel since 2006 when the Longhorns had the following young offensive talent.
QB: Redshirt freshman Colt McCoy
RB: Sophomore Jamaal Charles, senior Selvin Young and sophomore Chris Ogbonnaya
WR: Junior Limas Sweed, sophomore Quan Cosby and redshirt freshman Jordan Shipley
TE: Redshirt freshman Jermichael Finley
No. 4 – ICYMI ...
The Best of Orangebloods Youtube From The Weekend...
No. 5 - A few thoughts on the team coming to town on Saturday ...
a. The Longhorns have a major preparation advantage over Louisiana this week in the name of 12th man Hurricane Ida. Billy Napier is keeping his team in Lafayette, which isn't expected to get hit as hard as other parts of Louisiana, but it has a team full of athletes from all over The Boot that will certainly have their minds on things other than the season-opener.
b. Quarterback Levi Lewis is 24-4 as a starting quarterback. While Card makes his first start, this dude will be making his 29th freaking start. That's a significant edge.
c. On one hand, Louisiana played within one score against the following teams in 2020: Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Coastal Carolina, UAB, Appalachian State and UTSA. On the other hand, Louisiana was 5-1 in close games decided by one score.
d. Louisiana nose-tackle Tayland Humphrey is a sixth-year super senior and his battle against starting Texas center Jake Majors will be something to keep an eye on. It's not that Humphrey is some kind of world-beater, as he only earned Honorable Mention All-Sun Belt Conference honors in 2020, but he is a massive man at 350 pounds and is regarded as a first-rate run stuffer. No pun intended, but he's a big first-game challenge for Majors, who has only had to deal with Texas senior Keondre Coburn on a play-by-play basis all off-season.
e. With 20 starters coming back from last year, Louisiana is basically a poor man's Iowa State, even if they did clobber the Cyclones last year.
No. 6 - Three Week One High School Football Thoughts ...
Evan Stewart is the highest-rated receiver from the state of Texas in the history of Rivals rankings for a reason.
Denton Ryan linebacker Anthony Hill is underrated at No.30 in the country for 2023. Come on, Rivals ... the kid looks like a young Sergio Kindle. (p.s. - I have never compared anyone in recruiting to Kindle in the last 15 years.)
Connor Weigman is the best No. 3 quarterback in the state in the history of recruiting and I expect a lot to be made of the fact that Steve Sarkisian did not offer him when decisions on 2022 quarterback recruiting were being made.
No. 7 – BUY or SELL …
(Sell) The show will almost certainly still go on.
(Buy) Barring injury, he's going to start the next two seasons without anything getting in his way.
(Sell) Go back and look at how things stood at this exact time in 2016.
(Sell) That's not in the best interest of the team in my mind.
(Buy) Sure. Expect a mistake or two. The process rarely gets cheated.
(Buy) By "as the season progresses,” I'm assuming you mean this Saturday.
(Sell) No one at Texas seems to have any desire to wait that long, come hell or high water.
(Sell) I can make cases that the strength and conditioning coach and the head of the personnel departments can be more important. Not all of the time, but it's definitely possible.
(Buy) I'm not sure I would describe the situation this week as a controversy.
(Buy) Yup, that sounds about right.
(Buy) I've talked to a lot of players in the last two months and they all mostly seem to be having fun.
(Sell) You have to walk before you can run.
(Sell) Ehlinger won the job back then on intangibles as much as anything, although his willingness to throw the ball down the field is somewhat similar to Card. This situation reminds me more of Simms/Applewhite more than anything else, as the team is simply going with the more physically talented, younger player.
(Sell) I think he probably averages a turnover per game and not less.
(Sell) The beginning of the end for Nebraska football was always the fact that the school is in the middle of nowhere and doesn't have any natural resources from which to pull talent. This was always going to happen, even if it couldn't have seemed possible 20 years ago. I watch some folks talk about Nebraska football and it makes me wonder what kind of expectations exist in 2021 for VHS tapes.
No. 8 - Scattershooting on the sports weekend ...
... The news of Sam Ehlinger's knee injury only being a month-long deal instead of a 12-month deal from a recovery standpoint is pretty awesome news. That being said, I have no idea how the Colts are going to handle their quarterbacks this season. That team could have the worst quarterback situation in the entire league right now.
... I am not ready at all for fantasy football and I've been a terrible commish. I'll get my act together this week, but I just have zero motivation for it at the moment. I've just been too busy. Is this what it means to get old?
... Garrett Gilbert probably won the back-up quarterback job in Dallas on Sunday, but I'd advise upgrading if at all possible.
... What in the world is going on in Miami and why are the Dolphins a candidate to give the Texans half the national debt? Is Tua struggling that damn bad?
... Me thinks the Cowboys are going to get worked over badly by Tampa in the season-opener.
... Speedy and full recovery, J.K. Dobbins.
... I watched the movie Long Gone this weekend on Youtube and it still ranks as the most underrated baseball movie of all-time. Frankly, I cannot believe I seem to be the only one that romanticizes the philosophical musings of Cecil "Stud" Cantrell.
... Dear Premier League, please retire Anthony Taylor.
... Austin FC, do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Yikes, man...
... As a Liverpool fan, I'm all for Cristiano Ronaldo taking game time away from Mason Greenwood.
... Oh, and then there's this...
No. 9 - Top 10 Most Least Believable Athletes in Movies ...
The quest here is real simple... it's about finding guys that were pretty much the opposite of Carl Weathers in Rocky.
10. Paul Bettany/Kirsten Dunst (Wimbledon)
Just pick one. Neither can play tennis better than I can.
9. Robin Williams (Best of Times)
There's no way he ever gets by Dr. Death in real life.
8. Bernie Mac (Mr. 3000)
Find this movie on Youtube and watch him running to first base. Woof.
7. Adrian Grenier (Harvard Man)
He was supposed to be a college basketball player. Come on....
6. Rodney Dangerfield (Back to School)
Let's be honest, Rodney would have killed himself off the high dive in real life.
5. Wiley Wiggins (Dazed and Confused)
Wigging and I not only went to McCallum at the same time, but we are Facebook friends, so I'll say that he might have looked like a young Tim Lincecum, but his actual pitching was something quite different.
4. Tim Robbins (Bull Durham)
How in the world did Annie choose him over Crash with that pitching motion?
3. Michael Caine (Victory)
Caine was actually a soccer player in his youth, but asking him to pull off scenes against world-class players at the age of 48 was a bit much. Or more than a bit much.
2. John Goodman (The Babe)
Goodman is great and believable in Everyone's All-American, but the actual Babe deserved better than this.
1. Michael J. Fox (Teen Wolf)
I love this movie. I've probably seen it 500 times. That being said, Fox is such a terrible hooper that the those making the movie had to use the same lay-up about six different times throughout the movie.
No. 10 - And Finally ...
Fellas, we made it. Game-week has arrived. The off-season is over.
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