With Quinn Ewers hobbled, Texas Longhorns rely on run in win - ESPN

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas clinched a second straight 10-win season — its first in the SEC — leaning on its running game after an ankle injury to quarterback Quinn Ewers in a 31-14 victory over Kentucky.

After a third-quarter lull, in which Kentucky came back to cut Texas' lead to 24-14 following Ewers' fumble that was returned for a touchdown, coach Steve Sarkisian pivoted and decided to exert the Longhorns' will. The result was a 15-play, 86-yard drive featuring nothing but running plays that gave Texas the final score.

Ewers said after the game he was banged up after a tackle on a scramble earlier in the contest. Sarkisian said afterward that the «ball wasn't clean in the third quarter» and the Longhorns had just 14 second-half passing yards to 132 rushing.

Ewers' ankle «just kind of kept tightening up on him,» Sarkisian said. «At that point, I just said I didn't feel like it was worth having to expose him, the way we were starting to run it. And so it was like, well, let's get to what are we doing best today?… For weeks we've been talking about, well, the run game is a by-product of the passing game. Well today the run game was the key to the drill.»

Ewers said he'll just get as much treatment as he can this week before the Longhorns renew their rivalry with Texas A&M next weekend in College Station.

«It's just a little tender,» Ewers said. «I was around the 50-yard-line and I stepped up and kind of took off running a little bit and then kind of got hip-drop tackled and I think he kind of just rolled up on it a little bit. But it's football and stuff like that happens.»

The Longhorns can focus on the hype around the rivalry against the Aggies returning on Nov. 30 for the first time since 2011 in College Station with a