ARLINGTON -- Quinn Ewers knelt on the AT&T Stadium turf, watching his former roommate, Jack Sawyer, take what should’ve been his game-tying touchdown ball 83 yards in the opposite direction on a fumble recovery that ended Texas’s season in the College Football Playoff semifinals for the second-consecutive year. 

“It’s the life of a competitor,” Ewers said. “It sucks being on this side of things. I mean, back-to-back years pretty much (that) the game is decided on one play.”

If this is it for Ewers in a Texas jersey, he’ll go down as the quarterback and the face of one of the best two-year runs in program history: a 25–5 record, two conference championship game appearances, and the first two CFP berths. But, whether fair or not, it’ll also be remembered for how close the team was to more. A broken-up pass in the endzone that would’ve tied the game against Washington on the game’s final play, and a 4th-and-goal that could’ve tied Ohio State and instead resulted in a 28-14 loss.

Here’s why Texas was on the wrong side of one play, again.

Texas's OL never lived up to the hype in the biggest games

Texas’s offensive line was a finalist for the Joe Moore Award this season, but they were outmatched against the Big Ten and SEC elites. 

Texas’s offensive line allowed 17 sacks in the three games against Georgia and Ohio State. It allowed 19 sacks total in the 13 other games. In the 13 wins, Texas’s offense had 2,422 rushing yards and 26 touchdowns on 4.82 yards per carry. They had 118 total yards on 1.4 yards per carry in the three losses.

College football fans worldwide skewered Steve Sarkisian for running a weak side toss on second and goal. But he did so because on 1st-and-goal from the one, he sent in his jumbo package, ran up the middle, and got stonewalled. Ohio State won the game in the trenches, and Texas tried to steal it with a surprise perimeter play because it knew it was beat in there.

Texas was a skill guy short of a national championship

On that first and goal dive that went nowhere, Texas had true freshman Jerrick Gibson carrying the ball instead of five-star, 6 '1, 220-pound sophomore CJ Baxter. The Longhorns could cover Baxter’s absence against 99 percent of college football teams, but they missed him dearly in the CFP.

In risk of sounding too hypothetical, Texas might even make it to the national championship without Baxter if their wide receiver corps is 100 percent. The difference between Texas and Georgia was that Georgia had the nation’s best freshman catch one pass for three yards and could still rely on an NFL First Round prospect in Emeka Egbuka and Carnell Tate. 

Matthew Golden, who emerged as the true WR1 down the season’s stretch, missed a large chunk of the game with an injury and returned to catch a 27-yard flag route and draw two consecutive pass interferences on the final drive. No other wide receiver had over 31 yards. Isaiah Bond, the top wide receiver at the beginning of the year, had a crucial third down drop that summed up a frustrating, injury-plagued back-half of the season. 

Colin Simmons is a top ten NFL Draft selection in two years

We all (rightfully so) spent the week hyping up Ohio State star freshman wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, but Texas defensive end Colin Simmons was the best true freshman on the field on Friday night. His four tackles and two pass breakups don’t tell the story of how dominant he was against Ohio State’s offensive line. He consistently forced quarterback Will Howard off his spot and could’ve easily drawn a few more holding calls than he was awarded.

His impact on the defensive line of the SEC’s top defense at 19 years old was remarkable and should strike fear in the conference for what’s to come.