Note: This article was originally written as a Twitter thread and has been reformatted as a blog post. For more content like this, follow @j_epp22 on Twitter
With College GameDay going to Tuscaloosa, Ala., for the Texas Longhorns-Alabama Crimson Tide matchup, I wanted to do a deep dive into the two teams ahead of the game of the week to prepare myself and you for what to expect. I rewatched both Texas and Alabama's Week 1 matchups and dove into the numbers so do you don’t have to.
Here are the main takeaways so you can be prepared ahead of time for what to expect:
What to expect from Texas
After rewatching Texas' Week 1 battle with the Rice Owls, it was obvious to me that no man will be more important for Texas than the one under center: QB Quinn Ewers.
In last season’s matchup, he was immediately the X-factor, but he played less than a half of football before getting injured and leaving the game prematurely, ushering in backup Hudson Card. He killed Alabama in structure and pushed the ball downfield consistently, applying pressure to the Tide's defense.
In Week 1 against Rice, we saw a lot of parallels to the Alabama game: lots of play action for Ewers to play out of and Ewers pushing the ball downfield when he saw single coverage. He had six 20-plus yard throws in Week 1 alone, but he was zero-for-six on those throws. Baked into those incompletions were plenty of underthrows and overthrows.
Despite this, Ewers has a lot of talented pass catchers on the outside like Xavier Worthy and Adonai Mitchell who can sometimes bail him out on these inaccurate throws. Against Alabama’s DBs, he can’t make these same mistakes when being aggressive because they might make Ewers pay more than Rice's could.
But last year against Alabama, Ewers' ballsy play style worked. He was connecting with Worthy downfield and had Texas in position to pull off the upset win. The Longhorns' quarterback is going to need to connect on these throws downfield to do the same thing in 2023.
Another pair of Ewers' trademarks were present against Rice and Alabama: his poor play under pressure and inconsistency in structure. While a drop off is naturally expected under pressure, Ewers' is statistically significant.
Against Rice, he was pressured on just eight total drop backs; on those plays, he went one-for-five passing with three sacks. Rice blitzed on about half of Ewers' drop backs, and their pressure rate was relatively the same whether or not they blitzed. The offensive line held up well enough for Ewers, but when it didn't, he struggled.
Ewers also heavily benefitted from a play-action- and RPO- (run-pass option) -heavy scheme in Week 1 against Rice. It helped Texas create easy pitch-and-catches while their quarterback struggled downfield, and it took advantage of the talent and dynamism they have on offense.
The discrepancy in Ewers' production on play-action and non-play-action plays was obvious. He averaged 12.6 yards per pass attempt on play-action passes and only 3.9 yards on standard pass attempts.
While this game plan can work against Rice, Alabama is a more talented, athletic and disciplined program. They'll be able to hold firm on their assignments, make the tackles and force Texas into a mistake easier than the Owls.
Ewers is going to need to clean up some of his flaws against Alabama, but it wasn’t all negative in the opening week. One positive that stood out in Week 1 was his middle-of-the-field play, something that was not a strength of his in Year 1 at Texas. If he can keep this up going forward, it’ll open up more options for his dominant outside WRs.
Ewers has an athletic freak of a tight end in Ja'Tavion Sanders, and both Mitchell and Worthy can make plays in the middle of the field as well. By improving his accuracy and touch on the inside, paired with Texas' running game, it could create more looks on the outside, which is where his WRs really dominate.
Outside of Ewers, though, it all looked good for Texas. The wide receivers got open. The offensive line got consistent push in both the passing and running games. The RBs looked good, though their production might be due for a hit comparatively.
Texas' running backs benefitted from poor tackling on Rice’s end. They forced eight missed tackles, averaged 3.5 yards after contact and had six runs of 10-plus yards. Those marks should all regress next week.
Most importantly for Texas, though, they are dominant defensively. They have studs everywhere on the field, and they’re big, strong, fast — everything. They consistently won with just four rushers, and the front seven was unfair: they had 21 (!!) combined pressures. Rice QB JT Daniels’ accuracy issues were maximized by the constant pressure, never letting him get comfortable.
I wish I had more to say about them like I did Ewers, but dominance is the best way to describe it. Alabama has some beef on the offensive line, so it won’t be as easy in Week 2 for Texas' defense. But even so, they’re able to match up. The Longhorns' defensive line has some serious NFL talent on it this season, and that makes the job for their coverage unit that much easier.
What to expect from Alabama
For Alabama, I’ll start with their defense. The name of the game for the Tide defensively is just one word: pressure. As I mentioned before, there's a recipe to stop Ewers. First-round hopeful Dallas Turner, a pass rusher for the Tide, will need to have a strong game off the edge to make life easier for everyone else around him. He had four of their 11 pressures last week.
Despite playing Middle Tennessee, Alabama wasn't overly impressive in the pass rush. The Tide need to get home more than they did if they want to be dominant. If the pass rush can’t get home again, their defensive backs will have to step up against Texas' talented pass catchers.
Despite blitzing on half of his drop backs, the Tide only got pressure on Middle Tennessee QB Nicholas Vattiato on a quarter of his drop backs. In all fairness, though, the game plan for the Blue Raiders could have played a hand in this.
Vattiato threw a screen on 14 of his 36 drop backs. It must have been part of the game plan, because last season that ratio was just 10 out of his 65 drop backs. This also made the Middle Tennessee game difficult to evaluate for the defensive backs, as most of their passes were quick-game action and throws behind the line of scrimmage. Vattiato had just five passes 10-plus yards downfield, and he was zero-for-five on those throws.
In pass coverage, Alabama excelled when they needed to. The Tide didn’t miss their tackles and kept their opponent in check. They allowed just 133 yards in the air and 103 on the ground, excluding the negative yards on three sacks.
I don’t need to tell Nick Saban how to call his defense, he’s forgotten more football than I’ll ever know. Alabama is not short of talent or discipline defensively no matter the year. Texas’ offense will be challenged by blitzers, stunts and odd coverages every play, but will they hold up?
On offense, Alabama’s line looked solid. It was against Middle Tennessee, but the Blue Raiders weren’t slouches last season in run defense, and that was where the Tide focused on offense.
They ran the ball 35 times for 221 yards — ignoring sacks — and they ran hard. Alabama totaled 152 yards after contact, 4.34 yards per carry, forced 12 missed tackles and had eight 10-plus-yard runs. You have to assume regression in these numbers against Texas, but it will be a staple of the offense with QB Jalen Milroe under center.
Milroe can be a difference maker because he is almost always the best athlete on the field. He can make something out of nothing, and no play is ever dead or lost with his level of dynamism.
Most impressively, though, was his play in structure and his displays and use of his arm strength. He looked calm under pressure when Middle Tennessee got through, and he didn’t need play-action calls to challenge the defense deep down the field. His arm talent and athleticism were always evident, the question was if he could play in the offense. Early on in the year, he looks like he might be able to be in command.
Texas' front seven is wildly impressive, so standing in the pocket and delivering will be a different challenge than in Week 1. If he’s willing to take some hits against a talented Texas pass rush and push the ball downfield, he can be a difference maker in the game, especially with the concerns regarding his surrounding skill talent. It's not that Alabama doesn’t have any talented pass catchers, it’s just not the Alabama of old. Milroe will likely be playing at a talent disadvantage in the passing game.
I watched Milroe play live against Texas A&M in 2022 when I was covering the matchup with The Battalion. In that game, he was protected by the game plan, which included a lot of short-game, passes lots of screens and a run-heavy offense. That was not the case in Week 1. This time he was in command. He’s in charge now. About a year has passed, and the effort he has put into improving in Alabama's offense is evident.
Final verdict
For Texas to win - Ewers will need to be accurate. The defense will pull through, the question is: Will he? If he can command a consistent and competent passing game and limit the turnover-worthy plays, it opens up the door for Texas' playbook to work around it. As well, the offensive line needs to hold up. They looked good in Week 1, can they hold up against Alabama? They can’t afford not to.
For Alabama to win - the defense needs to try and win on its own. It's not that I don't trust Alabama's offense, in fact, it's the opposite. I just don't think it's explosive or potent enough to be the reason the Tide win. I trust the offense to not lose, but can the Tide's defense win. Another key cog that I didn’t even mention is potential first-round CB Kool-Aid McKinstry. If he can be a shutdown corner on the outside, life becomes so much easier for Alabama when they can have one less threat to worry about.
Current lines via DraftKings:
Texas ML +235
Alabama ML -290
Texas +7.5 (-115)
Alabama -7.5 (-105)
My take: I’ve been to Bryant-Denny Stadium, home of the Crimson Tide. It’s not an easy place to play. Despite being unimpressed by Texas in Week 1, I went into this exercise thinking I would pick Texas to win the game. But after going through everything, Alabama's offense gave me more confidence than I expected it would with Milroe under center. I think there’s a clearer recipe for Alabama to win. If you pair that with the fact they're at home and neither team is out-classing the other in the talent department, I'll take Alabama to win. But 7.5 points is a large spread for a game I think will be close. I'll take Texas to cover.
Alabama 31- Texas 27
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