Golden: Can Sark turn summer QB horror show into fall blockbuster?

If the people who do the movie ratings were attending Tuesday’s open practice at Royal-Memorial Stadium with a keen eye on the starting quarterback battle, they would have to come up with some new letters.

“G” doesn’t cut it because this is a grown-man’s job we’re talking about.

“PG” might work because coach Steve Sarkisian’s parental guidance is key.

“R” has its place because the media is pretty restricted from getting a full-scale view of what’s happening at football practice during the summer.

More:Four observations from Tuesday's practice

An "X" rating? Well, it’s a family publication, so let’s move on.

In the competition between Quinn Ewers and Hudson Card, we should just borrow the NC from NC-17 and label the situation as Not Clear.

It’s like a below average movie playing out before our very eyes.

Speaking of the big screen, the oldies in my age group still carry with us the after effects of staying up late night as elementary students to take in a horror movie we had no business watching while our parents slept.

The 1970s were filled with horror classics: Salem’s Lot, Carrie, Jaws, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween and Alien to name a few.

The Exorcist tops them all. It was showing on cable a few years after its 1973 debut. I was a preteen who had heard grownups discuss the horror classic about a young girl in the clutches of demonic possession and the actions of her brave mother and two Catholic priests to save her.

After watching it in my dad’s recliner, I couldn’t sleep for a week. Only 11 at the time, I believed in the days that followed that I had signed up for a lifetime of insomnia and nightmares due to a two-hour lapse in judgment. That is, until I found out my friends had watched it as well.

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After discussing the scariest parts — we still talk about the twisting head four decades later — we managed a few laughs in the safety of the lunchroom friendship circle. We soon realized that airing our deepest fears about the movie made us feel better about what we had witnessed. We found safety in numbers.

A few days later, good sleep returned, thanks to those calming conversations with my buddies along with a heavy dose of Saturday morning Looney Tunes, and Three Stooges reruns and many bowls of Super Sugar Crisp.

So what does this have to do with Texas football, you ask?

Well, I was one of the 2,000 fans at DKR and I came away thinking an Exorcist marathon would be more comforting than the thought of one of these quarterbacks being thrown to the Alabama wolves in three weeks.

While we did see a couple of nice throws — Jordan Whittington’s brilliant leaping catch of Card’s post route stood out most — the lowlights overshadowed the highlights. There weren’t as many ‘oohs and aahs’ as ‘ughs’ coming from the stands.

Someone will have to win the starting job in the next week or so for the Sept. 3 opener against Louisiana Monroe and the guy relegated to second string will come away with as much sustainable confidence as a Black man in the first 15 minutes of a 1980s slasher film.

More:Golden: After Angilau injury, offensive line will have to grow up fast

That said, after a few discussions with colleagues, I cling to the hope that it has to be better than what we witnessed. When the Horns take the field for the opener, surely we’ll see some playmaking from that position. From our seats in the stands in the press box, we’ll look back on those August struggles and chuckle because the sausage will surely taste better than we thought it would while we were watching it be made.

Card or Ewers? Who knows? Sark says he doesn’t want to wait too long before naming a starter which hopefully means we will be getting an announcement some time next week. The winner will have to replace the departed Casey Thompson, who threw a Big 12 best 29 touchdowns last season after taking over for Card in the second game.

Make no mistake, the fan base would kill to have anything close to a passing offense that ranked No. 72 nationally last season but patience should be the order of the day once Sark names the guy.

Improvement will have to come rapidly for the Horns to do great things this fall. Frankly, Card and Ewers — in the handful of times I have witnessed them throw — have been no better than ‘B’ actors in a 3 a.m. Lifetime movie so far. Running back Bijan Robinson is the unquestioned primetime player who has obviously earned top billing — and some mustard money, thanks NIL — but without a capable wing man to keep the heat off him, the Horns will be in trouble.

Ewers and Card have to be better. They have enough to take out ULM but aren’t Alabama ready and while one practice was a small sample size, can we realistically expect them to amp it up when that 2,000 on the west becomes a filled house of 100,000 with the ageless bloodthirsty vampire Nick Saban on the other sideline?

DKR could become Saban’s Lot, indeed.

Cause for alarm? Yes.

Optimism level? Cautious at best.

Here’s why. This time last season, there was bit more calm in the fan base because Thompson and Card had some nice moments in the blowout of Colorado in the 2020 Alamo Bowl, particularly Thompson, now at Nebraska, who threw four touchdown passes.

Of the two combatants, Card does a much better job of completing the short to intermediate throws but is prone to error when pressured as evidenced by a couple of interceptions he committed Tuesday, when he would have been better off just eating the football.

Ewers hasn’t thrown a meaningful pass since his junior year at Southlake Carroll so there is more mystery with him.  Last season’s No. 4 QB at Ohio State is more of a gunslinger. He has a bigger arm and throws a good deep ball but is often too heavy on the mustard with the short stuff. He missed on a couple of easy swing passes to running backs with little to no pressure on him.

Add the fact that offensive line is unproven and missing its most experienced guard in Junior Angilau, lost for the season to a torn ACL.

Sark said earlier this week that he was disappointed in the decision making from the weekend scrimmage that resulted in three interceptions. We witnessed more of the same on Tuesday though the practice was admittedly toned down to the basic plays so as not to reveal any wrinkles to future opponents.

He would be well within his rights to play both in each game though he told ESPN.com on Wednesday that he doesn’t want to go that route.

He can’t miss on this call. Sark was brought in here to produce a winner and while his first season was a spectacular box office flop, the Horns have enough talent to get back on the winning side of things with the right guy behind center.

Get it right and Texas will be that comeback story Hollywood loves to celebrate.

Get it wrong and it’s straight to video for a second straight season.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Steve Sarkisian must improve Texas quarterbacks play for Longhorns