Hooked: UT Football through a UK lens.

I’ve a lot of feelings. Disappointment. Anger. Embarrassment. Confusion. We couldn’t get it done against Georgia. Watching at the Texas Ex’s alumni bar, Hamilton, in Boston the atmosphere was electric to begin with, but it slowly soured like milk you leave out on the counter.

Georgia had our number from the off. They had an answer for our offensive line that couldn’t give Quinn protection. They knew without protection Quinn may stutter, which he did. 20 unanswered points in the first 25 minutes of the ballgame. That’s not good enough vs. a very well drilled team. And welcome to the “real” SEC, I guess.

With less than 5 left in the second quarter Arch Manning comes into the game and injects some life into it. Steve Sarkisian said in his pressers afterwards that that was the intention, bring a spark and give Quinn some time to compose himself and get in a good headspace. Returning to the field Quinn performed better, but it still wasn’t good enough. And it shouldn’t take getting benched for you to get your noodle in the right place.

Arch did provide a spark. Hamilton Bar Boston erupting in chants of “Arch! Arch! Arch!”. On field, too. The O-Line still remained to have an answer for the Georgia defense, but there was some creativity under center there. Faster feet. Quicker computing. Sneaky scrambling. Arch should have been brought on sooner if you ask me. And unfortunately I think the strip sack before the half probably cost him starting the 3rd quarter.

I wrote in my last blog that I don’t think Quinn is an NFL quarterback. To me, it seems Sark doesn’t want to hurt Quinn’s NFL prospects. But, he’s already done that himself. Quinn is a system quarterback. Call me a naïve child if you want, but that’s the bottom line. The system wasn’t working.

I don’t want to talk about the quarterbacks all the time. It’s getting fucking boring, but it needs attention. It’s the difference maker in this team. We have two legit QB1’s. Pick the right one.

Anyway.. shoutout the Texas defense. I think they did exceptionally well to not get pile-drived in the second half, only allowing 7 points for how much time they spent on the field. Those men are menaces, and if powerhouse Georgia running back Trevor Etienne isn’t on the field it’s a different outcome. I don’t have much more to say, but we would have been pumped without them.

A further blight on the game was the scumbags in the student section. It was a bad call, but trashing the field at DKR is an all-time shithead move. I know Texans to be accommodating, friendly, respectful people. And hell yeah, we’ve got passion. We are loud. Channel that passion in the right way. Be better.

On to Nashville. This isn’t going to be a cakewalk. Vanderbilt already have a huge scalp this year in Alabama (despite Alabama looking like a Big XII team this year, it’s still Alabama) and on a 3 game win streak they’re going to be tough. They’ll be chatting to the boys at Georgia saying “thanks for softening them for us, lads”.

That’s why we need a big, big game this week. We need to reduce this team to ashes to be taken seriously again. Hell, we need to win out from here to be taken seriously again. But it starts right here. Right now.

I hope there’s someone in the coaching staff that can help take this game by the horns. We need to keep the offense on the field. We need to make good decisions. Tell me that Sark wasn’t calling 90% of the plays last week and I’ll call you a liar. Someone needs to be in his ear this week and help get it done — In a BIG way.

That’s all.

Hook ’em.