Longhorns Take Down Louisiana Monroe 52-10 In Season Opener

The Longhorns started off the season strong with a win over Louisiana Monroe Warhawks

Matt Galatzan | Sep 3, 2022

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AUSTIN - The Texas Longhorns are officially back in the win column, taking down the Louisiana Monroe Warhawks 52-10 at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on Saturday night.

The win was expected, with Texas entering the game as prohibitive favorites as 37.5-point favorites.

Either way, the Longhorns have a lot to be happy about after Game 1 on both sides of the ball.

First and foremost offensively was the play of their new starting quarterback, Quinn Ewers, who, after an early interception on the first drive, looked cool, calm and collected, completing 16 of 24 passes for 225 yards and two touchdowns in just two and a half quarters.

However, the star of the unit on Saturday was arguably Ja'Tavion Sanders, who exploded onto the scene in his first career start, catching six passes for 85 yards and a touchdown, and displayed uncanny early chemistry with Ewers.

As per usual, Bijan Robinson also had a major impact on the game rushing 10 times for 73 yards with a touchdown and catching three passes for 40 yards and another score.

As a team, the Longhorns were dominant offensive, racking up 383 total yards of offense.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Longhorns were also very impressive, holding the Warhawks to just 259 yards of total offense (167 through the air and 92 on the ground) and 12 first downs.

And as was to be expected, linebacker DeMarvion Overshown was the standout on the defensive side of the ball, finishing with a team-high eight tackles, as well as two tackles for loss.

Edge rusher Barryn Sorrell was also a big-time contributor, finishing with 1.5 sacks on the evening.

However, things will only get more difficult from here for the Horns.

Following the win, the Longhorns will now turn the page to the toughest test of the Steve Sarkisian era to date, when the nation's No. 1 overall team, the Alabama Crimson Tide, comes to the 40 Acres next week.

It will be the first time Sarkisian has faced his former mentor Nick Saban since leaving Tuscaloosa for Austin in 2021.

Kick-off is set for 11 am.

You can follow Matt Galatzan on Twitter @MattGalatzan

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Published Sep 3, 2022

MATT GALATZAN

Matt Galatzan is the Managing Editor and Publisher of Texas Longhorns On SI and Texas A&M Aggies On SI and a long-time member of the Football Writer’s Association of America. He graduated from the University of Mississippi, where he studied integrated marketing communications, with minors in journalism and business administration. Galatzan started in the sports journalism industry in 2014 covering the Dallas Mavericks and SMU Mustangs with 247Sports. He then moved to Sports Illustrated's Fan Nation network in 2020, eventually being taking over as the Managing Editor and Publisher of the Longhorns and Aggies sites a year later. You can find Galatzan on all major social media channels, including Twitter on @MattGalatzan.