Texas football vs. UTSA: 3 adjustments Sarkisian should make for Week 3
Have Roschon Johnson line up in the wildcat formation for more snaps
Two of the most unfortunate injuries for Texas coming out of the weekend happened to redshirt freshman quarterback Quinn Ewers and junior quarterback Hudson Card. Ewers was down for a while after going down to the ground on a hard hit from sophomore Alabama edge rusher Dallas Turner near the end of the first quarter.
That was really unfortunate to see Ewers go down the way he did after playing so well in the first 14 minutes or so of this game. Ewers will now be out at least until early-to-mid October with a clavicle sprain that he suffered on that hit from Turner.
Moreover, Card took a bit hit on a sack from the Tide where he came up limping. It looked like Card was dealing with an ankle sprain for the rest of the game that had him hobbling around.
According to a report from Chip Brown of Horns247 on Sep. 12 (paid content), it looks like Card could’ve suffered a high-ankle sprain last weekend which could limit him at least for the next couple of weeks.
This now leaves the quarterback situation in doubt for the Longhorns in Week 3. If Card isn’t able to get the start next weekend, it looks like it will either be redshirt freshman quarterback Charles Wright, former walk-on Ben Ballard, or true freshman Maalik Murphy getting the start.
But one way that Sark can alleviate some of the concerns at the quarterback position against UTSA is by having senior running back Roschon Johnson take more of the reps behind center out of the wildcat formation. Roschon has the ability to run the wildcat either by running the ball up the middle himself or handing it off to another rusher or a wideout on a jet sweep.
Roschon is also a former converted quarterback, thus he could even take some snaps on passing plays if Sark schemes it up well with a safe outlet (i.e. finding Sanders on a short route).
We saw last season what Roschon can do when leading this offense in a situation when the quarterback room has multiple injury issues. Roschon took 16 snaps as a quarterback when Texas beat the Kansas State Wildcats at home in the regular season finale last year. His production and grit in that game pushed Texas over the hump to get the win over Kansas State in that game.
Roschon even took two snaps in the wildcat formation against Alabama on Sep. 10. I would expect to see Roschon get at least half the number of wildcat snaps against UTSA on Sep. 17 as he did against Kansas State in the finale last season.