Tyler Moss/TSTV Sports
After the Texas Longhorns beat the Texas A&M Aggies in the Lone Star Showdown Saturday 17-7, they will face a rematch with Georgia in the SEC Championship at 3 p.m. Saturday on ABC to determine this year’s SEC champion.
Longhorn and Bulldog nations remember the last matchup between these two powerhouses which ended in a 30-15 win by Georgia in the Longhorns’ house just six weeks ago. Everybody remembers bottle-gate, but for the Longhorns, there’s a lot more they’d like to forget about and not replicate this time around. Same goes for Georgia, as their win, although one may say dominant, was sloppy still.
Let’s hit Texas first. The first matchup of the year was riddled with offensive mistakes and incompetence. The Horns didn’t score any points until the third quarter thanks to fumbles, an Ewers interception, seven sacks allowed by a deeply-underperforming offensive-line at the time and general indecisiveness at the quarterback position, to be expected when Ewers had zero time in the pocket at all times.
The defense was the only positive, ironically, as they held Georgia quarterback Carson Beck to a stat line that would make any casual fan cringe, with three interceptions and zero touchdowns. It was the run defense that allowed Trevor Etienne to score all three touchdowns on the night, and even though 30 seems like a lot, it was the third lowest total of the season at the time and fourth lowest including all following games in the season. For Texas to have a shot in this game, the offensive line has to protect Ewers better, and allow him to get his feet set and find the completion if it exists.
With a receiver core that has Isaiah Bond, Matthew Golden and Silas Bolden, the completion probably does exist most of the time. Oh and don’t forget about tight end Gunnar Helm, one of the best receiving tight ends in all of college football. If not, there’s always the run game with Quintrevion Wisner, who is having a phenomenal year after being thrust into the starting role in tandem with Jaydon Blue after injuries to the Longhorns’ top two running backs in the preseason.
It should be noted that Texas has been better since their loss against Georgia. The defense has been smothering and Ewers has only thrown one interception since getting out of their offensive rut after the Vanderbilt game. If the offense can give the defense some point support as they have in the past couple weeks, the Horns have a chance.
Georgia’s win in October was not a pretty one. Riddled with abysmal quarterback play from Beck, and having to rely on runningback Trevor Etienne for all of the touchdowns, they survived, albeit the Longhorns’ decrepit offense all game deserves some credit. No Georgia receiver had more than 45 yards all game, and the Bulldogs had only 14 first downs all game, five less than the Horns. The difference was in Etienne.
Georgia will need to perform better at the quarterback and receiver positions in order to beat the Horns this time around. Georgia did well on the run defense, in total opposite of Texas, as they held Texas to 29 rushing yards the whole game. Keeping the Texas rush attack down will be essential to winning this rematch. Texas’s offense is very diverse, in that it can score any sort of way, but shutting down an entire lane and causing them to rely solely on the pass could be a very effective way to shut them down.
Georgia needs to keep the offensive ball rolling, especially after Carson Beck’s five touchdown, no interception performance against Georgia Tech last Saturday. Look for Georgia to crowd the interior and try to stop Wisner and Blue from wreaking havoc on the field, and for their offense to have success in the air this time around.
A two vs five matchup is always sure to be a close matchup. Look for each team to try to exploit each and every one of the others’ weaknesses. Texas has performed much better in the offensive line and rush attack since the Georgia game, and the Georgia pass attack has improved immensely since their last loss at Ole Miss.
Each team has looked better at every weakness from October, and every week, each team looks more like a national championship contender. It’s hard to predict what will happen, but the winner of the game will most likely be the team who can show that they improved more at what went wrong in October.