BREAKING: Steve Sarkisian details Texas’ plan in final seconds of Sugar Bowl loss

Steve Sarkisian details Texas’ plan in final seconds of Sugar Bowl loss

The Texas Longhorns were on the verge of a historic upset against the Washington Huskies in the Sugar Bowl, but were unable to convert in the dying seconds.

After it appeared like all hope had been gone just a few minutes earlier, the Texas Longhorns had a chance to punch their ticket to the National Championship in the waning seconds of Monday night’s College Football Playoff match with the Washington Huskies at the Sugar Bowl.

Despite trailing 37-28 with 1:10 remaining, the Longhorns found a way to put themselves in position to win the game at Washington’s 13-yard line, despite ESPN’s Analytics assigning the Huskies a 99.9 percent chance of winning with 1:02 remaining.

However, three consecutive incompletions by quarterback Quinn Ewers in the final 10 seconds marked a disappointing conclusion to the Longhorns’ season, as a golden opportunity slipped through their fingers in a 37-31 loss.

Texas supporters are sure to criticize the play-calling and execution in the final seconds, which Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian and Ewers were both asked about at the opening of the postgame news conference.

One of the more perplexing plays was a swing pass with 15 seconds remaining to running back Jaydon Blue, who lost a yard on the play after sliding out of bounds but squandered five critical seconds while relocating Texas to the 13-yard line.

Sarkisian went into great length regarding this play and the entire closing sequence.

“Yeah he was more of a check down on the play,” Sarkisian said of the swing pass to Blue. “We were looking for an opportunity for JT (Ja’Tavion Sanders) or J Whitt (Jordan Whittington). We’re trying to create a one-on-one matchup for those guys to go high-point it. Naturally, they did a good job defending it and Quinn did a good job of just getting the ball out to Blue with a chance in space but had to get out of bounds.

“You’re in a difficult situation because you’re out of timeouts.” As a result, we must be extremely cautious not to complete a ball short of the goal line, or the game will be over. So having to toss it into the endzone every time makes things harder, especially when they’re protecting the endzone. So we were simply trying to set up some matchups with different route combinations in order to generate some one-on-ones and give our play-makers an opportunity to make a play, and we weren’t quite able to do so. So that’s how it goes at times.”

Ewers started slow, but got going in the second half, and was a reason the Longhorns  had a chance to win late in the first place. However, his final pass attempt to Adonai Mitchell was batted down as the last second ticked off the clock. Mitchell, who caught a one-yard touchdown earlier in the fourth quarter to keep Texas alive, was the intended target on three incompletions in the end zone on the final drive.