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Quinn Ewers following loss to Ohio State: ‘Sucks to be on this side of things’
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Quinn Ewers just shook his head as a reporter mentioned that Texas, for 2 years in a row now, has been a play away from the national championship.
Last season, the Longhorns made the 4-team College Football Playoff as the 3-seed. In their opening game against Washington, they had a first-and-10 from the UW 12 with 15 seconds remaining in the game, trailing by 6. Ewers was pressured into a third-down incompletion with 1 second remaining, and his fourth-down pass to Adonai Mitchell in the endzone was ruled incomplete as time expired.
On Friday night in the Cotton Bowl, UT’s season ended in a similarly painful fashion. A first-and-goal play from Ohio State’s 1-yard-line quickly became a fourth-and-goal from the Ohio State 8. In a 7-point game with 2:13 to play, Ewers was pressured, stripped by Jack Sawyer, and forced to watch as the Ohio State edge scooped the fumble and ran it back 83 yards for a game-sealing touchdown. Ewers was picked off 3 plays into the final Texas possession of the game and Ohio State advanced to the College Football Playoff National Championship with a 28-14 victory.
A couple of plays, a couple of defeats Ewers will never forget.
“It’s tough. It’s the life of a competitor. It sucks being on this side of things, for sure,” he said after the game. “Back-to-back years pretty much a game decided in one play. It’s hard. It’s hard. All the work that we put in, being in the final 4 back-to-back years and coming up short 2 years, it’s tough, but I think that’s how life is. You’re gonna get punched in the face with some hard moments.”
Ewers finished the game 23-for-39 for 283 yards with 2 touchdowns and 1 interception. Texas struggled to run the football once again, posting just 58 net yards on 29 rushing attempts.
The Buckeyes had been a buzzsaw through their first 2 Playoff games, scoring 40-plus points each against Tennessee and Oregon. Texas held the Ohio State offense to just 21 points and was tied going into the fourth quarter.
A 13-play, 88-yard drive that took 7:45 off the clock in the fourth gave Ohio State its lead before those final 2 Texas possessions.
Texas has made back-to-back Playoff appearances under coach Steve Sarkisian, but it has not advanced to a national championship game since the 2009 season, when it lost to Alabama in the BCS title at the Rose Bowl. The Longhorns have not won a national title since 2005.
They’re close, but close can be haunting.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
