Richardson: Ewers Will Return As QB1 For Texas

Anwar, how are you, man?

You know what? I got nothing but love for you to actually correctly pronounce my name. Oh, you're my guy now. You my guy. I'm glad to be on with you.

Well, thank you. Let me be very clear about something, Anwar. I don't know who the hell else you have ever spoken to. Okay. We we do things.

Yeah, the right I don't. I'm not gonna talk to somebody not know who the hell they are. Anwar, thank you, man. I appreciate you, brother, man. Thank you for having me on, man.

It's great to talk to you. And yes, the man, the myth, the legend, Arch Manning, takes the field on Saturday to make his first start. And there's a lot of excitement, right?

There's a lot of buzz about that. I mean, he, it's funny when, you know, Steve Sarkeesia was trying to talk this week and trying to say about Arch being one of the guys and how he just kind of fits in, just like normal guys. And he doesn't, you know, have to do anything.

Special. I was just like, I mean, yeah, that's like saying like Michael Jackson is just one of the Jacksons, right? I mean, like, at some point, he is. And he's a Manning. He's part of the first family of football. When you start thinking of sports and some of the legacies that are there, like keep that the Manning family, the whole family and hockey, right? And so for him to make his start here, you know, Texas fans are very excited.

They obviously got a chance. I mean, they saw him in a lot in the spring game because he played a lot in the spring game. Steve Sarkeesia wanted to make sure that Arch was ready for a time like this because when he was battled injuries all throughout his career in college, he also had injuries in high school. So it's been a thing.

And so Steve was like, OK, listen, I need to make sure my backup is ready to go. And so that's why Arch played the majority of the spring game. And he looked incredibly well there because, you know, you've covered sports for a long time.

It's hard to really judge. I mean, it's a spring game, but he went out versus UTSA. And even though it was UTSA, I always say you still got to make the bad team look bad, right? I mean, because at the end of the day, it's easy to say, oh, they're not good.

But you got to make them not look good first. And they consider not good. He went out there. He looked very, you know, obviously from a passing standpoint, from an athletic standpoint, I don't think many people realize how much of an athlete he really is. I think everybody kind of looks at it and they think to themselves, oh, well, you know what?

He, you know, his daddy's take me in it. They thought about that. But they talk about Peyton. They talk about Eli and always forget that his daddy's Cooper. You know, Cooper was the athlete of the family. Like his daddy was the guy who was going to be a receiver in the SEC.

So it should have come as a surprise that he's got the wheels that he has. So it's a good thing for Texas. You know, Queen viewers will probably be back. You know, he's weak to weak.

I've talked to some people today. They feel like, you know, after this game, they've got Mississippi State. Mississippi State's horrible.

So they may, they may not even need him. Yeah. Yeah. They got blasted by Toledo, by the way. Blasted by Toledo. So at the end of the day, after the Mississippi State, they have a bye week. So they may be the opportunity to say, okay, let Quinn rest this week. Let him rest against Mississippi State.

Go into the bye week and then come back for the real back to back gauntlet, which is Oklahoma and Georgia in back to back weeks. Anwar Richardson is here with us from orangebloods.com. You talk about Quinn Ewers, and it seems year after year throughout the course of every season, we see him go down with some type of injury. I mean, he's sitting down right now, projected to be one of the top quarterbacks selected in the draft. You'd have to be kind of blind to not take into account his injury history if you have to look at Carson Beck and also Chador.

What are your thoughts on his durability? You know, one of the reasons why he didn't go pro after last season is the feedback that he got from the scouts was he's got to find a way to stay healthy. You know, when they invest in you and they say like, hey, you're going to be our franchise guy. Well, you know that the availability is just as valuable as the athleticism that you might have. And so, you know, him not being out there for the next couple of weeks, you know, it's going to make an NFL team say, okay, can he last an NFL season? Am I going to invest in the guy who has struggled to last? And then do we have to get him?

Do we have to get a quality backup? So, look, I think at the end of the day, I don't think the quarterback draft class is so overwhelmingly strong where you say to yourself, okay, he still can't be a first round pick. Like, someone will take a risk on him, but someone will take a chance and say, you know what, the arm talent is there.

The accuracy is there. He's being coached by Steve Sarkeesian. Like, there'll be a lot of things that someone will say, okay, maybe we can work with him. Someone will tell themselves, we'll get him in our strength and conditioning program or our doctors will be able to do that. They'll do that. But at the end of the day, you still got to have a quarterback and stay healthy.

At the end of the day, that's just what it is. And so it might ding him in the eyes of some teams. I don't know if it will for every team because at the end of the day, the thing about the NFL is you can't win unless you have a franchise quarterback.

And so you've got to keep trying to find someone until you get it. And so there's going to be an NFL team that says the guy that we have ain't that good. We can't go to the Super Bowl with him. We may need to draft this guy. And even if he just sits for a couple of years, maybe that ends up being the guy that gets us over the hump.

Because at the end of the day, in the NFL, you just can't win without a franchise guy. Anwar Richardson is joining us here. Covers all things Texas Longhorns.

You're listening to the JR Sport Brief Show. Going into this season, people are looking at the defense and specifically the secondary. They're like, hey, what are they going to do? And it's tough to evaluate after these first three games. They pretty much beat up on everybody.

But what is your impression on the defense so far? I mean, they've pretty much only really looked at Michigan here. Yeah.

I mean, you have a great observation, right? But let me say this. Last year, this past defense was ranked one hundred and sixteenth in the country. Okay.

I would think you would agree, Jared, it's kind of bad this year. They're top twenty five. Right. And so sure. Here's the thing here that's interesting.

They've made the bad teams or the subpar teams look the way they need to do. Right. Now, we said you have to do that. Like, it's easy to say, like, okay, you haven't played anybody.

Well, what was the noise a couple of weeks ago? Right. So you've got to still do you got to still do that thing. Right. But they went on the road versus Michigan and they basically beat that team by 19 points and said that until we talk about the defensive standpoint, we saw that they were supposed to have an outstanding run game. And that was supposed to be something that, oh, what is Texas going to be able to do with that? They shut that run game down and then they put Michigan into a spot where they would post throw the ball. But there what happened in that game is something you don't really see when it comes to a top ten team. They were trailing late third quarter, fourth quarter. And you know what Michigan refused to do? They refused to go to a hurry up offense and try to pass the ball to get back in the game because they knew that this defense was so good and they knew their quarterback was so inept that if they tried to hurry this tempo, they might get blown out. So I would say that the defense has played well.

And here's the other thing now. I don't know if you have the schedule in front of you. They played Mississippi State next week.

Right. Then they have the buy that I've told you that they've got the back to back games and got Oklahoma and Georgia. And then if you look past that schedule after that, I mean, they smoke and they play. They should be able to beat most of these teams pretty easily. When you talk about the Florida's of the world and the Kentucky's of the world, Vanderbilt, that's going to be on the schedule, Texas A&M, like they have a road and a path where once they get past those two tough games, it really opens up for them. And then they just got to just be a team that gets hot and catch this fire and continues going. So, you know, they've got, you know, the good part is they're good enough at this point where you can look at it and say they'll be better than the majority of teams that they played this year. Outside of Georgia might be your only contest game.

And outside of that, Texas should have the advantage. So, yeah. How do you judge it? I know it's hard, but at the end of the day, when you're going out and you are curb stomping pretty much every team that you have faced at some point, you're saying, OK, they may have something here. This doesn't look to be a fluke.

Anwar Richardson is here with us from orange bloods dot com. You named it. You know, taking a look at the schedule, you got the Bulldogs. That's this smack dab in the middle of the schedule. They currently ranked the number one in the country. Longhorns are ahead of UGA, which they've been for the better part of now two years. So what do you ultimately expect at the end of this season for their first year in the SEC?

You know, the interesting question there are going into this season, everybody kept asking, is Texas ready for the SEC? Right. They've been in the Big 12.

They hadn't really had a lot of championships when they're in the Big 12. Right. So are they ready for that? And at this point, the question can almost be flipped, which is, is the SEC ready for Texas? Right. Because they've they've they've been able to build up a program that you saw last year, went into Tuscaloosa and beat that team on the road by double digits. Right.

Yes. They lost to the loss to Washington in a college playoff game. But Michael Panics got on his PlayStation to hit the God mode. Right. And he just went off in that game. Right.

So I don't know how many people would have beat him in that game. And then you see this team go on the road to Michigan and beat that team by double digits, beat that team by 19 points. So when we get towards the end of the season, I think we're at the point where we can't say this thing is a fluke. Like we can't say like, OK, this is lucky. This is a run off.

Like, no, like you see what happens. You saw Quinn, you go down last week and you saw Arch Manny come in and take over. You saw they lost two running backs before the season and they still haven't really skipped a beat. As far as the run game is concerned, they had guys come in and transfer port of the receiver. Don't forget that they lost three receivers to the NFL draft. Everyone talks about the guys that Michigan lost. I know they lost 13 guys to the NFL draft. These are kids have been saying that offbeat that, by the way, we lost 11 guys to the NFL draft and we're doing just fine. Right. So they lost three receivers. Xavier Worthy, who you obviously know about.

Yeah. Adonai Mitchell, who's at an Indianapolis Colts enjoyed it when it's in his with the Rams. And they just went ahead and just refurbished and replenished that from receiving room with their deep. So these are kids before the season said this was one of the deepest teams. This is what that one of the deepest team that he's had since he's been here in a Texas.

And I was like, oh, man, you're talking a lot right now, especially based off of what you did last year. But we've seen them have sustained injuries and still not skip a beat. They literally lost their quarterback and got the number one ranking, you know, a day or two later.

Right. We saw what happened to FSU last year. They lost their quarterback. And the committee was like, well, y'all can't be in the playoffs.

Yeah, y'all, y'all, y'all done. They lose there. They're like, you know, number one team because you got arch bathing. So I think at the end of the at the end of the year, this is a team that you probably should expect to be in the SEC championship game. This is a team that is fighting for and should be probably contented several weeks away. But again, as you look at that schedule, you know, that's a team that should be fighting for a top four spot.

And they're one of the better teams in the country. And, you know, look, we'll see what happens when they face up against Georgia. That's a game that potentially could be played three times to be played in a regular season. Could be played in SEC championship game.

Could be playing in the playoffs. But, you know, we'll see how they match up. But again, they match up really well against Alabama last year. I think they match up well against Georgia this year.

The thing is about SART that you have to know and take an account for is when he got here, he looked at the squad and he said, this ain't it. We need a team that can compete against the SEC. This is before the Big 12, the whole move from the Big 12 into the SEC thing happened. He just said, like, even when we get out of the Big 12, we're going to have to face SEC competition. And so we need to build that. So what did he do?

He built it in the trenches. You know, you can't win in the SEC unless you've got a good offensive line and defensive line. I think you remember a few years ago, you started hearing stuff with the NIL, that pancake factory and how the offensive linemen were getting like 50 grand each. Right. They were able to. Yeah, I know. I know. But we missed out, bro.

We missed out. They've been able to build. They built the offensive line. They built up the defensive line.

They've replenished, they've replaced. And so this is a team that that's that's legit. This is a team that's going to be serious. And I think over the next several years and I'm a harsh critic. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm a straight up person. I'm a very harsh person. I'm not a homer. I went to University of South Florida. I don't have a horse in this race. But I do believe that over the next few years, the teams that you're going to see consistently competing for national championships are going to be Georgia.

Old Miss, Alabama. And I think Texas is going to be one of those teams, because what you see what SARC does, that you're going to see them year in and year out competing because they understand how to recruit and recruit very well. They understand how to use the transfer portal to their advantage. And then Steve Sarkeesian as a play caller has done a phenomenal job. And so has the staff. So I don't think I don't I don't think what we're seeing is like a one off loop where you were going to say like they go back to the norm. I don't want to say Texas is back, but I would just I just want to say they're better.

If that makes sense. Well, I know what I'm going to see this upcoming Saturday. They're going to beat the snot out of Louisiana.

Man, that that much. Hey, I'm just I'm just saying they said they're not afraid. They've seen Arch and we'll we'll see if he puts up another five CDs on them. Anwar, where can people follow and find you and all your work?

That's good. It's going to be a lot of slow singing, a lot of flower bringing, as Biggie would say. Follow me on this Anwar Richardson on Twitter. Nothing fancy.

A N W A R. Last name Richardson. Don't send me nothing on Facebook or Instagram. I ain't going to get on there. That's just for my kids. Get on the get on X and you can get on there and you can follow me. I don't I don't tweet out a lot of different things.

So you won't be overwhelmed or overburdened with stuff. And we appreciate you, man. Good luck covering that bloodbath, OK? It's going to be bad, but I appreciate you. You can have me on anytime, brother.