What is the Match-Up looking like?
Heading into Texas’s first college football playoff game in quite a while, the Longhorns will be tested by an undefeated Washington team. Washington has beaten many good teams this year, such as USC, Utah, Oregon State, and others. But the team they have now won twice and was widely considered one of the best teams in the nation was Oregon. And while they went undefeated, many of their games were quite close. They won about five games this year by one score or less. So if Texas can put points on the board and lock down the 2-star receivers on the Husky’s offense, they should have a shot of winning this game.
What does Quinn Ewer's need to do to Win?
Ewer must be almost perfect, like he was in the Big 12 Championship game against Oklahoma State. The Huskies have let up multiple games this year where they have given up above 30 points. In the contest against USC, they almost gave up 50, and in both against Oregon, they let Oregon’s offense get rolling at times. With Washington’s secondary now being healthy and having about a month’s worth of rest from any actual games, the Husky’s secondary could be the best it has been all year. It seemed that way in the Pac-12 Championship game. Ewers will need to get star receiver Adonai Mitchell involved fast and early, just like Oregon tried with Troy Franklin but failed to do the rest of the game. Also, Ewers will need to spread the ball out underneath to force the Husky’s secondary to start playing closer to the line of scrimmage. The Huskies would have their DBS 8 to 10 yards off the line of scrimmage, which Oregon needed to take full advantage of. Instead, they kept trying to hit the homerun shot and kept failing at it. If Ewer’s can keep throwing to the check-downs and make this secondary work at all three levels to try and take this stacked offense, they could have many issues. Finally, if Ewer’s can have around 350 to 400 yards passing, you should expect the Longhorns to have a real shot of winning this game and hopefully help them move on to the College Football Championship game.
