This he SEC Championship Gamewas a highly-anticipated showdown between two top-five teams heading for the College Football Playoff already but seeking to impress the selection committee one more time. The Texas Longhorns and the Georgia Bulldogsmet at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta to decide the winner of the nation’s top conference — and the two teams needed overtime to settle their low-scoring slugfest.
As was the case earlier in the 2024 season, Georgia defeated Texas, this time by a narrow 22-19 score. The win will see Georgia claim the #2 seed and an automatic bye in the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff, while Texas will be sweating bullets as it waits to discover its playoff seed — but the Longhorns‘ future after 2024 is in some serious doubt.
Texas starter Quinn Ewers threw for 358 yards against the Georgia defense, but he was sacked six times and threw two interceptions to only one touchdown. Another so-so performance from Ewers was one too many for fans on social media, who have been given another reason to believe that backup QB Arch Manning— the highly-rated high school phenom — will “give up” on the Longhorns and switch schools in 2025.
Manning was brought in for a key fourth-down conversion in the first half, but head coach Steve Sarkisianhas always backed Ewers — and against every other opponent Ewers faced in 2024, that proved to be the right call. Yet, as Texas’ hopes of a bye dissipated on Saturday night, fans and analysts thought that Manning would have been a better bet — and should be the Longhorns’ starter in the Playoff.
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