I tried to prepare you all for this. We played war games for you. War games! I got you as ready as ready could be for a scenario in which Quinn Ewers went down. Now, it’s here, and some of you don’t seem prepared.
There are many disturbing things about Quinn Ewers’s oblique injury, beginning with the fact that it was probably orchestrated by the Manning family. Among those things, of course, is that Texas is now headed for somewhere between nine and fourteen games of constant cycling between “PUT MANNING IN!” and “if only Ewers was healthy” anytime a quarterback misses a receiver wearing orange. Also among those things is that Texas taking the number one ranking only further tilts the ramp downhill. We are headed towards a fierce, fiery meltdown. If you had to draw up a plan before the season for the most painful Texas disintegration possible, you would describe exactly what has happened so far:
Blow out Michigan. Lose Ewers to a minor nagging injury against UTSA. Arch Manning plays great. Team gets caught between quarterbacks but gets the number one ranking so it thinks it’s invincible. Lose back-to-back games to Oklahoma and Georgia, making children cry.
That’s the cocktail napkin version of what you should be dreading right now, and it should be far too believable and far too familiar for you to be enjoying anything in your life at this moment. Have the post-Vince Young years taught you nothing? If Texas were a proper fanbase, every dad in this state would be telling their kids it’s all about to fall apart. Fatalistic? Yes. That’s the point. Every fanbase who isn’t coming off of a title or celebrating a sustained run of frequent titles should always be prepared for doom. That’s what getting emotionally invested in sports is all about.
I’ve dithered and dallied. Here’s the real point we’d like to make this afternoon:
- It’s better if your first string quarterback, a Heisman favorite and potential top-ten draft pick, is fully healthy.
- No matter how good the backup is.
- Especially when your coach’s whole thing is being great at coaching college offense.
That’s it. That’s the point. Quinn Ewers’s injury is not a good thing for Texas. It’s not exciting. It’s not a blessing in disguise. This isn’t some situation where the head coach needed a nudge to move towards the backup. This isn’t some situation where you didn’t know what you had in the backup. You already knew Arch Manning was good, and if you didn’t, you still would have seen the exact same things out of Arch Manning on Saturday night. They just would have happened in the second half instead of the first.
This is bad. Oblique injuries are bad. Oblique injuries make it hard to rotate your body. You use your obliques to throw things. You should know this! You have a good baseball program!
It is bad that Quinn Ewers got hurt.
The reason everyone makes fun of you guys for the “Texas is back” thing? It’s because you take the bait so quickly. You are so quick to believe that the best thing possible is happening to your football team. You are an optimistic fanbase. Destructively so. I get it. Life is good in Austin. It’ll stop being 100 degrees all the time in about a month, and burnt orange is a great color. But stop believing good things are happening to you. You don’t get to believe that until January 20th.
Injuries
Ewers is day-to-day, per Sark earlier this afternoon. There’s still a chance he’ll play Saturday against ULM, at least ostensibly. I doubt it, and in the face of the Arch Manning hype machine I’m willing to be the guy who says “It’d be sneaky good for Texas if Arch starts and throws a couple picks.” But, Ewers could play. I think the only way he does is if Texas really, really values the Heisman Trophy, but I have been known to get things wrong.
Jaydon Blue is “making progress,” again per Sark, and could see the field this weekend as well.
The H–E–B/Texas Volleyball Commercials
The bad news for Texas volleyball is that the team is 3–3, and that one of the losses—the one last weekend to Miami—was a bad loss. The good news is that we’ve all got Texas volleyball H–E–B commercials, and H–E–B commercials are as good as H–E–B.
One of my favorite games to play with commercials is to try to figure out how many there are in a given H–E–B campaign with a team. For example: Were there four H–E–B Spurs commercials last year? Or three? I don’t know the answer. This game is a blast.
The answer to the H–E–B/Madisen Skinner commercial count is three. There are three H–E–B commercials with Madisen Skinner. There’s the one with the band, the one with the bus, and the one with the block. This might be confusing, because if you search “HEB Madisen Skinner” on YouTube a number of other videos will come up, but only three of those are commercials. The other videos are every local news station running a segment on how H–E–B partnered with Texas volleyball star Madisen Skinner. H–E–B did not pay for these segments on the local news. H–E–B is really good at marketing.
Longhorn volleyball’s at Baylor on Wednesday. 8 PM start. The broadcast is on ESPN. The flagship! Baylor’s ranked. Big night all around.
