In Alamo Bowl defeat, Texas drops passes and a chance to end its season on a high note

SAN ANTONIO — Standing outside the Texas locker room early Friday morning, Jerrin Thompson wanted to give the Washington Huskies their due.

After all, Washington was the team that had just recorded a 27-20 win in the Alamo Bowl. The Huskies had made the big plays that Texas didn't. So hats off to them. Or, in the case of a couple of dressed-up Huskies who were celebrating in their nearby locker room, cowboy hats off to them.

But ...

Texas had its chances to leave San Antonio with a season-ending victory. Instead, the Longhorns stumbled into the offseason with an 8-5 record.

"Heads are held high, but we know we're a little disappointed," said Thompson, a junior safety. "We felt like we were a better team. We give Washington credit; they were a great team; they came and did their thing. But to be honest, we feel like we should have won this game, and we're going to use this (motivation) a lot going into next year."

More: Our staff takeaways from Texas' loss to Washington in the Alamo Bowl

With Texas trailing 20-10 in the third quarter, the Longhorns looked for a score that would keep them within reach of the Huskies. But a frustrating sequence left Texas with something it did not want to remember at the Alamodome.

On a second-and-11 play at the Texas 39, the Longhorns sent wide receiver Xavier Worthy down the Washington sideline. He beat his defender but was unable to haul in the catchable ball thrown by Quinn Ewers.

On the next play, Ewers went right back to Worthy. This time, the receiver sprinted through the Washington secondary and was wide open in the middle of the field. Ewers found him again, but Worthy dropped what would have been a 66-yard walk-in touchdown.

After those two Worthy misses, Texas was forced to punt. Washington then put together a 14-play touchdown drive that gave the Huskies an insurmountable 27-10 advantage with 13 minutes, 8 seconds left.

"It's tough, but I didn't lose any confidence in him, and I know he didn't lose any confidence in himself," Ewers said of Worthy. "Stuff like that happens every now and then. But it sucks to see it happen in crucial situations like it was."

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian was asked about the passing game's missed opportunities. "Tonight was kind of a microcosm of kind of how the season went for us," he said.

Bohls: Wins really count at Texas, which definitely counts its wins

Due to overthrown passes, misread routes and drops, Ewers and Worthy failed to establish a meaningful connection on deep routes throughout the season. Worthy leads the Big 12 with nine touchdown catches, but his longest score was a 44-yarder against West Virginia.

Last year, as a freshman, Worthy had touchdown catches that covered 62, 63, 72 and 75 yards. His biggest reception this year was a 46-yarder against Alabama on Sept. 10. Two of his three 40-yard gains came on passes thrown by backup quarterback Hudson Card.

Worthy, who declined earlier this week to say whether he'll return to Texas next season, averaged 12 yards over his team-high seven catches against the Huskies. Ewers threw for a career-high 369 yards. With leading rushers Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson opting out of the bowl game, Texas threw the ball 47 times while gaining just 51 yards on 18 rushes.

"The plan tonight was we knew we were going to throw the ball more than we had kind of throughout the season," Sarkisian said. "We felt like that gave us the best chance, and it did. I thought the pass game was effective. I would have liked for us to run the ball better than we did, no question. Just didn't quite execute the way we wanted to."

Despite falling behind by 17 points, UT rallied and had a chance to go for a late tie. With 31 seconds remaining, the Longhorns, trailing by a touchdown and out of timeouts, started their final possession at their own 16-yard line.

Ewers' first-down pass to Worthy was nearly intercepted. The quarterback was then sacked by defensive end Bralen Trice. With time dwindling, Ewers threw another incomplete pass before a final-play 49-yard heave that was caught by Casey Cain. Texas was still 41 yards away from the end zone as time expired.

"We've got work to do to get over the hump, and to beat good teams you have to play good football, and we didn't play good enough tonight," Sarkisian said.

Washington opened the Alamo Bowl by moving the ball across midfield on its first two drives, but the first possession ended with an interception by Thompson and the second with a 46-yard field goal. On its third try in Texas territory, Washington finally found the end zone on a 42-yard run by Wayne Taulapapa.

In its two games ahead of the Alamo Bowl, Texas hadn't allowed a 20-yard run. Only three such gains — 23- and 24-yard pickups by Oklahoma wildcat option Jalil Farooq and TCU running back Kendre Miller's 75-yard run Nov. 12 — had been surrendered by the Longhorns in their previous six contests.

Taulapapa's run was the only touchdown of the first half, but Washington's Peyton Henry kicked two field goals and Texas' Bert Auburn converted a 30-yarder. In the second half, Alamo Bowl offensive MVP Michael Penix Jr. capped two long Huskies drives with touchdown passes.

Washington (11-2) closed out its season with seven straight wins and tallied its most wins in a season since 2016.

"This momentum we've built up from all these wins and all this hard work we've put in, I don't know about you guys, but I feel like I could go out and play another game," said Trice, the game's defensive MVP.

The seven-point loss ended a season in which Texas made a three-win improvement to its record. During Sarkisian's 2021 debut, UT went 5-7 and did not qualify for a bowl berth.

"This program literally in year two made a huge change from what last year was," senior defensive back Anthony Cook said. "We played in a bowl game, where last year we wasn't. All I see is success."

Texas' last five bowl games

2017: Beat Missouri 33-16 in the Texas Bowl, as UT punter Michael Dickson won bowl MVP honors.

2018: Beat Georgia 28-21 in the Sugar Bowl, and the Longhorns were baaack — at least for one season.

2019: Beat Utah 38-10 in the Alamo Bowl behind Sam Ehlinger's four total touchdowns.

2020: Beat Colorado 55-23 in the Alamo Bowl, as Casey Thompson said hello, but Tom Herman was about to say goodbye.

2022: Lost to Washington 27-20 in the Alamo Bowl, as Quinn Ewers threw for 369 yards, but the running game never got off the ground.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas ends its season with Alamo Bowl loss in 27-20 defeat to Huskies