Texas football vs. Kansas: 4 reasons the Horns dominate in Lawrence
The potential IF Quinn Ewers can finally find chemistry with Xavier Worthy
Nothing is more painful to watch this season for the Longhorns than the frequency with which redshirt freshman quarterback Quinn Ewers is missing sophomore wide receiver Xavier Worthy on the deep ball. Texas can’t seem to find the connection between Ewers to Worthy on deep glance and post routes to save their life this season.
In the last five games, Worthy and Ewers actually haven’t connected on a single one of their eight deep post targets. Seven of the passes weren’t even catchable balls and the one that was contested.
The deep post has literally gone dry for Quinn Ewers to Xavier Worthy in the last 5 weeks:
— Hook'em Headlines (@HookemHeadlines) November 17, 2022
-0/8
-1 catchable ball (contested 50/50 pass)
-1 interception
The lifeless connection between Ewers and Worthy in the passing game came to the forefront in the loss to TCU. Ewers missed Worthy time-after-time, without many adjustments in the play-calling from Sark as the game progressed.
What was so frustrating about the missed connections between Ewers and Worthy was the fact that the elusive second-year wideout was open on a lot of the targets. Ewers just couldn’t get his feet set and get an accurate throw off to him beyond 10 yards from the line of scrimmage.
But the fact of the matter is that if Sark can find a way to open up the intermediate and deep passing game against the Jayhawks this weekend, this game should easily go in Texas’ favor. The most vulnerable part of this 4-3, two-high safety, defense for the Jayhawks is on the intermediate part of the field between the numbers and deep. Kansas is prone to giving up the deep ball and can get beat over the middle in the passing game when the secondary is overmatched in terms of speed.
And with how much of an edge Texas should have at the skill positions athletically compared to Kansas’ defensive backs, this will be a key component in the game to get the intermediate and deep passing games going.
Next. 3 key injured Kansas players vs. Texas. dark
There’s a reason why I put an “IF” in all caps on this part of the list. With what we saw from Texas in the passing game in the last few weeks, I don’t have much confidence in what this group will be able to do against an improved Kansas secondary. But if Texas can even be as effective through the air as it was against Kansas State two weeks ago, that should be enough to beat Kansas.