1. As far as season-openers go, I thought this was a pretty good showing by Texas. This is a team that entered the season with a lot of question marks and while it wasn’t a flawless performance (is there even such a thing?), a 52-10 beating that could have been worse than that is a heck of a start. Is there work to be done? Of course. Is Texas going to have to play much better next week to be competitive with Bama? You bet. But this was a solid performance overall and those of you who were nitpicking every play of the game need to take a step back and just focus on the final score.
2. If I was handing out grades after this one, I’d probably give Quinn Ewers a B-. Yes, he missed a couple throws. Yes, that first series of the game was a disaster. But he also made some really nice throws in the middle of the field and other than those first two passes, was very efficient. Ewers finished with a 164.6 passing rating, a full 10 points higher than what Casey Thompson put up last year and 25 points higher than what Card posted in 2021.
3. After one drive, Ewers had a QBR of -100. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that. A couple completions and one touchdown later and his rating was up to 132.9. After the third drive, his rating up to 184.8. He hit on five straight completions after the first two misfires. That’s one hell of a bounceback from that slow start.
4. Raise your hand if you had Ja’Tavion Sanders as the recipient of Quinn Ewers’ first career touchdown pass. Sanders was so open on that TD reception that he almost looked shocked for a split second after he caught the ball before racing upfield for a 19-yard score.
5. Man, DeMarvion Overshown looked explosive tonight. A couple of plays he ran down from the backside were things he can put on his resume tape for NFL scouts. Overshown would finish the night with a game-high 8 tackles (6 solo) and 2 tackles behind the line of scrimmage. Great start to the year for Overshown.
6. If Overshown wasn’t the star of the defense, the nod would have to go to Barryn Sorrell. We’ve all wondered where Texas’s pass rush would come from this year and we might have got a good glimpse from Sorrell, who recorded 1.5 sacks, 2 tackles for loss and 6 tackles overall. There had been talk all off-season that Sorrell was starting to come into his own and he put it all on display in this one.
7. Ewers was off a bit on his downfield throws in the first half, and OB was in midseason form with some of the criticism on this board. To that I say … calm down. He was probably riding an adrenaline high which forced him to overshoot Xavier Worthy a couple times. Ewers’ is a tremendous deep ball thrower and we’ll see much more efficiency in that area moving forward.
8. Loved the pump fake by Ewers when he was out of the pocket in the third quarter before he flipped the ball to Sanders for a big gain of 25 yards. I’ve said this before, but Ewers has a pretty natural feel in (and out of) the pocket that should come in handy at times with a young offensive line.
9. Welcome to the show Ja’Tavion Sanders. Six catches on six targets for 85 yards and a touchdown in his first action. Well done.
10. That ball Ewers through to Sanders down the seam in the third quarter was a thing of beauty. It was a great read, first of all, but Ewers’ ability to get the ball downfield with just a flick and place it perfectly in front of Sanders, out in front of pretty tight coverage, was damn near perfection.
11. Really good night for D’Shawn Jamison, who raced through for an easy blocked punt early in the game and then recorded a pick-6 later in the game. Jamison was an intercepting machine throughout fall camp and he backed it up tonight. He probably had better plays over the course of the night but was Johnny on the spot in catching a deflected ball for an easy INT.
12. I thought Jaylon Guilbeau played well in his first action. He didn’t fill up the stat sheet with 1 tackle, 1 PBU and 1 QB hurry but he was active and showed a good feel on a couple plays, including shutting down one side of the field on one run play when he crashed into the backfield and forced the back the other direction, and then getting downfield to block for Jamison on Jamison’s interception return.
13. Did Isaac Pearson lose his job already? Rough start for the Aussie.
14. It was a pretty pedestrian effort for Bijan Robinson as far as rushing statistics go (71 yards and a TD) bit he did average more than 7 yards per carry and was also heavily involved in the passing game.
15. I said this on the board mid-game, but Texas not only has arguably the best RB room in the country, it has the highest character running back room as well. Bijan Robinson, Roschon Johnson and Jonathon Brooks are all class acts. Good to see all three of them find the end zone in this one.
16. Perhaps the most shocking statistic of the offense was Xavier Worthy catching only two balls over the course of the game. He did have six targets in total and was open on a couple of them but he and Ewers were unable to connect. That’ll change.
17. Casey Cain looked a hell of a lot more elusive and faster than I expected on that 43-yard catch and run. Great start to the season for him.
18. What was up with the ULM pooch kicks? I’m assuming they’re trying to keep the ball out of Jamison’s hands but that strategy bit them in the butt.
19. Not many worse sights for Texas this year than seeing Kelvin Banks lying on the field in some pain. It looked like he just got his foot stepped on and he came right back in, but Texas needs Banks to stay healthy.
20. Don’t look now, but the Big 12 actually looked pretty good this week. The teams in the conference weren’t exactly playing elite competition, but everyone took care of business outside of West Virginia, and most won convincingly.
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