ATLANTA, Ga. – A large percentage of the Texas faithful placed a bet heading into the Peach Bowl against Arizona State. Not the type of bet collected at a window in the desert, but one that resulted in a lot of empty seats at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta – the same place that housed the SEC championship in December and will host the national championship game on Jan. 20.
Texas fans skipped the Peach Bowl en masse with the College Football Playoff semifinal taking place up I-35 at the Cotton Bowl, and their Horns made sure the wager cashed in a frustratingly exciting 39-31 victory over the Sun Devils to start the new year. But not without a sweat. The Longhorns allowed Arizona State to erase a 24-8 lead with 10:17 left in the game and missed two potential game-winning field goal attempts before closing out the Sun Devils in double-overtime.
Reports from the Fiesta Bowl suggested that Penn State fans made the same decision, skipping the quarterfinal against Boise State under the assumption that they’d be traveling to Miami for the Orange Bowl only nine days later.
THREE THINGS
Longhorns can’t win a championship with that offense
The Longhorns are 13-2 in 2024 without much excellence from the quarterback position. That trend continued in the Peach Bowl win. Quinn Ewers started hot, completing his first two passes for 77 yards and a touchdown. He was 4-of-8 for 37 yards in the rest of the first half. He missed a few wide-open receivers and was saved by Matthew Golden on a poor fourth-down throw on a drive that resulted in a field goal. He only threw the ball once in the third quarter.
Ewers didn’t take a step forward in 2024. He threw for over 300 yards six times last season, including in all four of the biggest games of the season – at Alabama, vs. OU in the Cotton Bowl, in the Big 12 championship, and the Sugar Bowl. Texas worked around him for most of 2024. He’s only surpassed 300 yards twice in 2024 – against Florida at home and in the SEC championship loss to Georgia.
But Texas isn’t a lame duck without a star at quarterback. At least it wouldn’t be if the run game could be counted on against the remaining competition. Beating Clemson and Arizona State is one thing. Knocking off Oregon or Ohio State, or even a Georgia in a potential third meeting this season would require more from Ewers than he’s shown in 2024.
Texas would be the clear favorite to win the title with the 2023 version of Ewers. Whether it be because of injury, lack of playmakers at wide receiver, or another reason, the 2024 version simply isn’t good enough.
Longhorn defense deserves better
Arizona State had run 68 plays to Texas’s 27 and had more than double the time of possession entering the fourth quarter. The Texas offense allowed two points of the eight Arizona State scored through three quarters. The Longhorn defense faced 26 snaps in the first quarter alone and only allowed three points. A fourth-and-goal stop in the third quarter kept the Longhorn lead at two possessions, despite the offense’s safety on the ensuing play of the next possession.
The dam eventually broke. Arizona State scored its first touchdown of the game on a running back pass from Skattebo to Malik McClain with 6:31 left in the fourth quarter. Skattebo ran the ball into the end zone minutes later after an Ewers interception and then scored the 2-point conversion to tie the game at 24. A missed field goal gave Arizona State the ball with a chance to win the game, but the Texas defense did what it’s done all year: Got the key stop.
The scenario played out again in the second overtime. Credit to Ewers for big throws late to give the Horns an eight-point lead after Texas’s possession in 2OT. After allowing a first down, the defense bowed up and Andrew Mukuba locked up the game with an interception.
Texas survived another lackluster performance from its offense thanks to its dominant defense. Just like it did against Texas A&M. And Arkansas. And Vanderbilt. It likely won’t in the semifinals. Oregon and Ohio State can put 30-plus points on any defense, especially the Ducks.
The Longhorns won 13 games and reached the SEC championship and the CFP semifinals with one arm tied behind its back. Asking this defense to carry the team into a championship game just isn’t fair.
The 12-team CFP needs tweaking
There is nothing wrong with giving the conference champions of the Big 12 or ACC or even the Mountain West guaranteed entry into the College Football Playoff. But giving two of those champs a guaranteed bye into the quarterfinals was a failed experiment.
Texas and Penn State – the runners-ups in the SEC and Big Ten, respectively – entered the quarterfinals as double-digit favorites. Conversely, one-seed Oregon and two-seed Georgia were forced to face higher-ranked opponents in Ohio State and Notre Dame. Credit to Arizona State for not folding down 17-3, but the seeding is still broken.
The seeding in the field isn’t the only required fix. While the games weren’t competitive, the first round provided tremendous atmospheres at on-campus sites at Penn State, Ohio State, Texas, and Notre Dame. The quarterfinals were attendance duds, at least at the Fiesta Bowl on Friday night and the Peach Bowl on Saturday morning.
Some of that is the matchups. Some of that is fan fatigue – whether it be money or PTO. Asking fans to potentially travel three or four times in a month during the holiday season is hard, even for the most affluent fans. For Texas, the Peach Bowl was the second of three possible trips to Atlanta over its last five games given that the SEC championship game also took place in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
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