Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers had the rare opportunity to tie Colt McCoy and Casey Thompson with six touchdown passes on Saturday in the blowout win over Florida.

McCoy threw six touchdowns against Baylor in 2006, and Thompson had six himself against Kansas in 2021. But Ewers had to settle for five touchdowns against Florida, a total that was done seven other times in school history.

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian pulled Ewers early in the third quarter with the Horns leading 42-0. Did he think about leaving Ewers in to get that sixth touchdown?

“I tend not to worry about that kind of stuff,” Sarkisian said. “I think records are made to be broken when they’re meant to be broken. I don’t think you should try to break records.

“I think that’s when the football gods get you, and I try to stay on the good side of those guys.”

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The football gods rewarded the fifth-ranked Longhorns (8-1, 4-1 SEC) with a dominating performance against the struggling Gators. Ewers was a huge reason why. The junior came out slinging from start to his early finish with the sole purpose of getting Texas out to a big lead and staying there.

Asked about possibly tying UT’s six touchdown record, Ewers asked, “Is that what it was? I had no idea. But, you know, I went up to coach Sark joking like, ‘Already? Come on now.’ It was fun being out there, I mean, it always is.”

Ewers opened with completions of 10, 12 and 20 yards on UT’s first three offensive plays. The Horns appeared to have communication issues later in the drive, forcing Sarkisian to call a timeout — something he clearly did not want to do.

As each drive commended, the Horns pushed the throttle harder and harder. Ewers got the ball to his playmakers in open space and let them create plays. Statisticians credited the Horns with 277 yards after the catch. Texas finished with 352 receiving yards on the day.

Ewers finished the day 19-for-27 for 333 yards with the five touchdowns and no interceptions. It was a sizzling day for a player and an offense who needed a huge confidence boost.

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Those numbers would have been dramatically bigger if not for two drops by DeAndre Moore Jr. He dropped a potential 50-yard catch over the middle. Ewers went back to Moore but overthrew the target. Then, Moore couldn’t haul in a potential deep touchdown catch before running out the back of the end zone.

“I mean, we have a great team, like I said, but I bring explosiveness to the offense as well,” said Isaiah Bond, who had a 34-yard touchdown catch. “Kind of what I'm here for is to make explosive plays. It's nothing really surprising or anything. That's what I came here to do: make explosive plays.”

Ewers played so well, Sarkisian pulled his starter for backup Arch Manning early in the third quarter. At that point, Sarkisian wanted to start running the clock, which meant running the ball.

“There’s never doubt whenever we’re on the field and coach Sark’s calling the plays,” Ewers said. “There’s never any hesitation with us wondering if we’re in the right play column now. We’re going to go execute each and every play because that’s just the trust and experience that coach Sark made.”