AUSTIN (KXAN) – The Texas offense was humming early in the season. Quarterback Quinn Ewers orchestrated a unit that was working efficiently and consistently scoring the ball.
Then came the game against Georgia. Ewers was struggling to the point where Steve Sarkisian brought in Arch Manning for a spark at the end of the first half. The Longhorns ended up with just 15 points, a season low, in a loss.
“I think we’ve all on the offensive side realized we may be trying to do too much because we’re trying to maybe prove ourselves after the loss against Georgia,” said Longhorns senior center Jake Majors. “If we just get back to the basics and doing our job and focusing on the key details that apply, we’re going to get back to who we were.”
The Longhorns came out against Vanderbilt the following week and jumped out to a 21-7 lead in the second quarter. The rest of the game though, Texas tallied just six points.
Now as Steve Sarkisian’s team comes off their second bye week into this final stretch of the regular season, their head coach is relaying a message of confidence in his offense.
“Yeah we didn’t have a couple great weeks,” said Sarkisian about his offense. “That’s okay. We’re going to be all right and making sure that we’ve got confidence to go do those things. I don’t overdo it with them because I just want them to know I believe in them. And here’s why I believe in them and here’s what we’re going to do to ensure opportunities for them to go make some plays.”
Longhorns sixth-year linebacker David Gbenda said a sentiment around the team coming off the bye week is, “everyone is going to remember the games in November.” With four guaranteed games left, the Texas players are keeping perspective.
“That’s some of the reason we work like we do in the winter and summer,” said Longhorns junior running back Jaydon Blue. “It helps us so that when games get hard that we’re able to stay together and lean on each other.”
The Longhorns are back in action Saturday at 11:00 a.m. as they host Florida. The official pregame show of Texas football is Texas Gameday and airs Saturday at 10:00 a.m. on KBVO. Jonathan Thomas hosts alongside Texas football legends Alex Okafor and Dan Neil.