Texas QB Casey Thompson to replace Hudson Card as starter vs. Rice

Casey Thompson is set to make his first start at quarterback for Texas against Rice Saturday, head coach Steve Sarkisian announced on his Monday news conference. Thompson will replace Hudson Card, who started the first two games of the season.

Sarkisian addressed the elephant in the room in his opening remarks.

“Casey [Thompson] will start this week at quarterback,” he said. “Hudson [Card] will play very similar to the same format we had when [Card] started in case [Thompson] would play.”

Card struggled under pressure in Texas’ 40-21 loss to Arkansas, throwing for 61 yards, while completing eight of his 15 passing attempts.

Thompson made a late appearance in the game. With the game pretty much over, Thompson threw for 57 yards, completing five of his eight passing attempts.

In Arkansas, Sarkisian believes Thompson did a better job moving the offense down the field and has been impressed with what the junior quarterback has done in his limited time on the field this season.

“I think [Thompson has] performed well. In the Louisiana game, he had three drives, scored 10 points. Came in gainst Arkansas, put 14 points on the board,” he said. “The bottom line is, it’s not always how you execute every play, it’s about how are you maneuvering the offense down the field to score points, and I think [Thompson has] put himself in a good position to do that.”

Conversely, the first-year Texas head coach thought that Card was thrown off by a hostile environment in his first away start, and lacked composure in the pocket.

“[Card] just got antsy in the pocket, he started moving around when he didn’t need to move around, and that created timing issues in the passing game that we can’t afford,” Sarkisian said. “I didn’t feel like there was this level of frustration that he got out of control, I just feel like he was frustrated because it wasn’t working. But part of it was, we were moving around too much in the pocket, we got to clean that up.”

Sarkisian saw the opposite from Thompson’s performance.

“I thought [Thompson] showed a lot of poise and calm in the pocket, delivered the ball down the field,” he said. “So all those things add up to, ‘hey this guy deserves his chance’, and I feel good about it.”

Running back Bijan Robinson said Thompson’s experience is crucial and that he brought a level of composure that Card lacked against Arkansas

“With [Thompson], I know he has a little more experience than [Card], and he can make some reads or make some calls that he might have seen you know before, as he’s been here,” Robinson said. “When [Thompson] got in there, he looked really calm. Nothing really rattled him, nothing really fazed him. He just looked comfortable in the pocket and made the right reads, even when he had to tuck it and run, he still looked confident when he was doing that.”

As for the future, Robinson is happy for Thompson and believes the team needs to rally behind him.

“I am happy for Casey,” he said. “I just know that we just need to execute and ride with [Thompson] moving forward.”

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