The missing Ewers-to-Worthy connection
Texas was eager for a change at quarterback after the 2021 season. Casey Thompson‘s long ball left a lot to be desired, Hudson Card was inconsistent throwing down the field as well, and the ultimate weapon to pull defenders away from Bijan Robinson and the run game was frequently left unfired. In several big games in which Texas blew early leads, opponents would pack the box and sit on their run game, wasting Bijan’s talent.
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Heading into 2022, Texas rebuilt the offensive line with several big men taking roles across the front. They got a major boost when Kelvin Banks emerged as a fantastic left tackle, both improving that position and allowing Texas to build a jumbo package by moving Andrej Karic to tight end. Texas also developed young tight ends Ja’Tavion Sanders and Gunnar Helm while adding Jahleel Billingsley from Alabama.
Texas depth at running back is better, the offensive line is stronger and more coherent in year two of the scheme, and they can add more and better blockers around the line. Finally, despite the loss of Isaiah Neyor to an injury in fall camp, they still have 10.5 sprinter Xavier Worthy to serve as a target on play-action. This team is built to pound teams with the run game and punish overplays with deep shots, the composition is nearly ideal.
Throwing the ball? Generationally gifted thrower Quinn Ewers, who arrived via transfer in time for winter drills and spring practices.
With the season and a chance at translating all of this into a Big 12 Championship with a home win over TCU, here’s the kind of defensive looks Texas is getting.
1st snap of the first half:
Eight in the box and the deep safety was playing flat-footed despite his initial depth, reading the tight end.
Early in the 2nd half:
Eight in the box and now the deep safety is flat-footed at just eight yards deep.
What’s the deal? Wasn’t this nightmare supposed to be behind the Longhorns?
A post away from a Big 12 Championship?
The post route is the ultimate weapon of the power running, play-action team. You get a fast receiver running down the field, breaking open at an angle, then you chuck it over the middle of the defense’s head and hit him on the move and he scores.
Oklahoma State won a ton of football games over three years of Mason Rudolph throwing post routes to James Washington.
Texas is unfathomably bad at throwing the post route to Xavier Worthy. They tried a couple of times in this game, as they have in every other game, and once again came up empty.
There’s a lot that’s not great about this one which feeds into why it was caught by the other team. The ball is kinda lofted out there for one, this is window which needed to be hit with more zip. The throw arrives late, it’s apparent he threw into double coverage but Ewers didn’t have to give the safety a chance to make a play on the ball. Additionally, the ball was intercepted because it was late and behind to the cornerback, the safety couldn’t quite get there.
Here was the other attempt.
The fact you never see Worthy dive or lay out for a ball makes him an easy person to blame for these routine misses but… he was open on both of these throws and didn’t get an accurate ball into the right window. Might he have laid out and made some desperate attempt here? Possibly, but it wouldn’t actually make a difference save for making his quarterback look worse and potentially getting him injured.
Again, the ball is late and this time off Worthy’s line. The safety who appears in the picture late was sprinting there and only had time to arrive in the vicinity because the ball sailed. The concept on this one is “dig-post” which was OSU’s favorite way to hit James Washington down the field. Texas missed an identical play to Worthy with Card against Iowa State in 2021.
There have been similar issues with the slot fade route, which Texas attempted a few times in this game and couldn’t connect on. Ewers did hit a seam/post from closer range to Sanders (rifled that one in with perfect timing) and had some chances at throwing deeper stop routes, including one he missed late in the game throwing off his back foot.
The overall mechanics have been shaky and Ewers simply isn’t connecting on these deeper throws, the timing and accuracy isn’t there.
So what’s to be done?
I’m seeing a lot of arguments about what Texas should have done which quickly move past the “Ewers isn’t hitting the post” issue underlying the offense. This issue is actually a bit more serious and clear than perhaps we’ve appreciated.
For instance:
Casey Thompson (2021): 261 passes for 2,113 yards at 8.1 ypa with 24 touchdowns and nine interceptions.
Quinn Ewers (2022): 212 passes for 1,507 yards at 7.1 ypa with 13 touchdowns and six interceptions.
Texas’ ability to land big plays in the passing game has actually DIMINISHED since replacing Thompson with Ewers, with the obvious caveat Ewers could potentially catch up with big games against Kansas and Baylor. He could also fall further back.
It’s diminished despite having Whittington healthy all year, getting Worthy more reps in the system, drastically improving pass protection, and improving the run game. This wasn’t supposed to happen and the primary variable that’s changed for the worse is quarterback.
During fall practice I noted Card was actually more effective in deeper throws because he was reading the defense and delivering with much better timing. Nevertheless Ewers got the job. He was shaky but flashed against ULM, hit a few massive throws against Alabama before his injury, and then really hasn’t been particularly good since although he makes a handful of throws every week few others can.
An interesting quirk over recent weeks has been teams refusing to respect the post from Texas.
Ewers was hitting the crossers run underneath the deep safeties when they cleared out to stop the post really well, particularly against Alabama and Oklahoma. Now defenses are making him prove he can throw the post… and it’s not connecting. Unless I’m mistaken, the only post Texas has hit to Worthy all season was by Card against West Virginia. Without the intermediate crossers or run game, Texas’ offensive well dries up.
Thus you end up with teams loading the box again as they did in 2021. They can try more spread sets but this team was built to run the dang football with Bijan and Roschon Johnson and they were doing it well before opponents went back to loading the box. What happens when they get into 11 personnel and the lack of a third receiver emerges as an issue? How much of the spread passing game can Ewers reliably execute after repping the power/play-action sets more heavily? Can this offense really work their way down the field without errors given Ewers’ struggles to read defenses and check out of bad situations?
Ultimately this offense doesn’t work until they can connect on throws down the field. Every offense has a limit if you can’t force good safeties to back off.
Perhaps next week the dam breaks and Ewers hits the post or other vertical routes multiple times, but it’ll likely have been too late for 2022. Texas is clearly invested in Ewers’ talent and future, it’s easy to see why, but in a year in which the league was down and ripe for conquest the Longhorns probably just wasted another opportunity for a title.
Now they’re pot committed to developing his talent. A big offseason looms for Steve Sarkisian and Ewers.
