How Quinn Ewers, Texas ‘fought fire with fire’ and beat Michigan at its own game

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — As second after second melts from the pregame countdown and kickoff of a college football game approaches, the sidelines tell the story of how significant the matchup between any given teams really is. The bigger the occasion, the richer the stakes, the thicker the flocks of big-shot boosters, world-famous alumni and highly coveted recruits. Everyone wants to feel as close to the impending action as possible, documenting the occasion with one selfie or self-recorded video after another.

The sidelines at Michigan Stadium on Saturday told a story of supreme importance, of two College Football Playoff participants from last January tangling in one of the most richly anticipated non-conference games of the season. Nearly two dozen NFL scouts and personnel executives, including at least three general managers, roamed the bench areas for an in-person glimpse of rosters loaded with future pros. Former New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter and former Sacramento Kings star Chris Webber chatted near midfield, two famous Michigan alums reveling in the spotlight of their former home. Michael Phelps, the retired swimmer and most decorated Olympian of all time, flitted from place to place, the throngs of VIP guests prompting security to clear him a path. Few games, if any, since Michigan’s revival under former coach Jim Harbaugh came with the levels of pomp, circumstance and visiting support that reverberated through Ann Arbor this weekend, when No. 10 Michigan hosted No. 3 Texas in a measuring stick for both teams and their conferences, the Big Ten and SEC, respectively.

“This is a tough place to come and win,” Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said. “They had obviously won 23 in a row here, and this is obviously a quality opponent. So for our players to come in and play with the poise and composure that they played with, but yet also the physicality and the toughness we had to play with today, I thought they just did a really nice job.”

Almost a year to the day after Texas stormed into Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for a season-defining win over then-No. 3 Alabama, propelling itself toward the school’s first berth in the national semifinals, the Longhorns rampaged into the home of the defending national champions and manhandled them on both sides of the ball, racing to an early lead and then coasting through the second half as scores of fans left early. It was a performance that cast little doubt over Texas’ qualifications for a potential repeat trip to the College Football Playoff, where the Longhorns should be viewed as legitimate contenders to win it all. It was the kind of mauling Michigan itself had grown accustomed to inflicting during a three-year revival that relied on smash-mouth football to capture three consecutive Big Ten championships. It was a wire-to-wire victory in which the Wolverines were pummeled, 31-12, failing to reach the end zone until long after Sarkisian pulled his starters.

If beating Alabama on Sept. 9, 2023, proved the Longhorns were capable of upending legendary head coach Nick Saban, purveyor of the sport’s most elite program, then Saturday’s demolition of Michigan showed that Texas is here to stay.

“There was no leaving without a win,” linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. said. “That’s one thing that we felt was a little different [compared to beating the Crimson Tide last year]. I was a young guy on that team, I was following leads. So now, this year, it felt like, ‘OK, now I know we’re going to win. We’re not losing this game.’ That’s just how it felt.”

And it probably felt that way from the game’s first drive, from the moment Sarkisian decided to receive the opening kickoff and Texas began slicing a vaunted Wolverines defense to bits. Quarterback Quinn Ewers, whose résumé now includes road wins at both Alabama and Michigan, said the Longhorns were keenly aware of how aggressive the play calling from new defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale was likely to be, how much Martindale “likes to blitz and likes to kind of, I guess, win games with his calls,” a description that seemed to hint at the coach’s perceived arrogance. So Sarkisian and Ewers simply answered in kind — “fight fire with fire,” as Ewers described it — and exploited an inexperienced secondary with passes of 33 yards and 24 yards on the opening possession, though the latter was ultimately negated by a holding penalty that clawed a touchdown off the board.

The Longhorns’ front-foot approach began in the trenches, where an offensive line littered with NFL prospects effectively hogtied what had widely been viewed as an elite defensive front — a classification that will almost surely be questioned after the timidity of Saturday’s performance. The defensive tackle tandem of Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant, considered by some to be the best in college football, combined for zero sacks and just one-half tackle for loss. The edge-rushing partnership of Josaiah Stewart and Derrick Moore, both of whom are admired by scouts, never sacked Ewers and only managed to hit him once. They were equally porous against the run and surrendered 5.1 yards per carry on the Longhorns’ first 25 attempts, even as Texas was reduced to its fourth- and fifth-string running backs due to injury.

A missed field goal on the opening possession was remedied by four consecutive scoring drives in which Sarkisian routinely got the better of Martindale, as the visitors built a 21-point lead. Ewers completed 10 of his first 13 passes and finished 24-of-36 for 246 yards, three touchdowns and no turnovers. The rushing attack gouged out 143 yards and a score, with four players surpassing 22 yards each.

“We’re at our best offensively when we can run the football, when we can RPO, when we can play-action pass, when we can drop back, when we can screen you,” Sarkisian said. “We try to do a lot. And we try to make it difficult on our opponents trying to defend all that we can do. And if we can’t run it — and if we can’t run it with a physical mentality — then a lot of the other stuff gets difficult.”

But it was Michigan that proved incapable of running the ball despite facing a Longhorns defense that yielded 118 rushing yards to Colorado State last week. Texas’ dominance in the trenches expanded to include a retooled defensive line that smothered tailbacks Donovan Edwards (eight carries, 41 yards) and Kalel Mullings (six carries, 25 yards), despite losing tackles Byron Smith and T’Vondre Sweat to the NFL Draft, with both players chosen among the first 38 picks. Even change-of-pace quarterback Alex Orji, who played sparingly in support of starter Davis Warren, finished with minus-1 yard on two carries, twice failing to move the chains on critical third downs as hordes of Longhorns swarmed.

What remained of the Wolverines’ offense was little more than a feeble passing attack that boasted neither the arm talent nor the receiving talent to overcome a multi-score deficit, such is the thinness of Michigan’s margin for error without J.J. McCarthy at quarterback and with the entirety of last year’s offensive line in the NFL. Warren, who was intercepted twice, needed until the 11-minute mark of the fourth quarter to surpass 100 yards through the air. And when his only consistent target — tight end Colston Loveland — fumbled without being touched in the latter stages of the second quarter, handing the ball back to Texas for a game-clinching touchdown, it was clear the Wolverines stood no chance. A program that prides itself on toughness was thoroughly out-toughed. 

“None of the moments should feel too big for us anymore,” Sarkisian said. “And that’s just what I commended them for in the locker room. This is who we are. This is how we know how to play. There’s nothing better than going on the road and when you have great composure and you can play that way, because that’s a way to kind of take over a game when you can start to eliminate a crowd.”

By the end of the third quarter, Sarkisian’s team had accomplished that goal as scores of maize-clad fans were streaming for the exits. Any remnants from that electric pregame atmosphere were gone. 

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him at @Michael_Cohen13.

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