There is an adage in sports that everyone is familiar with: “The backup quarterback is the most popular quarterback on the team.”
We have witnessed that firsthand throughout the years at Texas. When Tyrone Swoopes was the starting quarterback, Longhorn fans wanted to see Jerrod Heard. When Heard did not excel at the position, Longhorn fans banged the table for Shane Buechele. Once Sam Ehlinger arrived on campus, he became the most popular backup during the offseason before winning the position. Hudson Card was Ehlinger’s backup for one season (2020), and people behind the scenes compared him to Aaron Rodgers (yeah, that happened). After Ehlinger’s departure, Card and Casey Thompson battled for popularity. Card was the No. 1 quarterback throughout most of the offseason when Quinn Ewers arrived at Texas, but Longhorn fans already had their favorite QB. However, Arch Manning was the most popular quarterback on campus during Ewers’s last two seasons as a starter.
There are rare instances where that adage does not apply. Not one Kansas City Chiefs fan is standing on the table for Patrick Mahomes’ backup. Buffalo fans do not want to see Mitch Trubisky or Buechele start instead of Josh Allen. We know Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, and Jalen Hurts have backups, but none of their respective fan bases want to see the No. 2 guy outside of the preseason or taking a knee on the final snap of a blowout win.
And with all due respect to every Longhorn quarterback on this roster, none of them is more popular than Arch Manning. Nobody will wonder if Manning’s backup could play better when he throws an interception this season. Reporters will not write articles or have debates on YouTube questioning Sarkisian’s decision to start Manning. Unless you are related to one of the backup quarterbacks, no Longhorn fan will secretly wish that Manning gets benched so we can see if the other guy is a better option. Everyone is all in on Manning.
There’s no question about who will lead the offense in 2025.
The goal is to keep it that way from Week 1 to the national championship.
Some Longhorn fans — and a guy whose name rhymes with Geoff Ketchum — questioned Sarkisian’s decision to start Ewers over Manning last season. Logically, I understood Sarkisian’s decision. Ewers was the starting quarterback on a team that advanced to the College Football Playoff semifinals during the 2023 season. The reason Texas was defeated by Washington was because of a poor defensive performance, especially in the secondary, as opposed to Ewers. Sarkisian decided to start Ewers and make sure Manning received reps in each game.
We have heard people not associated with the program question Manning’s capabilities during the offseason. Former Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray said, “If you’re so good… why in the hell are you not playing above a seventh-round quarterback?” suggesting the Longhorns’ talented roster was “held back” by Ewers’ inconsistent play.
Former Florida coach Steve Spurrier said, “Most people picking Texas to win the SEC. They’ve got Arch Manning already winning the Heisman, too. My question is: if he was this good, how come they let Quinn Ewers play all the time last year? And he was a 7th-round pick.”
I do not agree with Spurrier or Murray’s assessment of Manning. Ultimately, Sarkisian believed it was best for Manning to develop for one more season, and hopefully, for Longhorn fans, the payoff for that decision occurs this year.
Nevertheless, Longhorn fans need to say a prayer, buy a lucky rabbit’s foot, and make sure Manning does not break any mirrors to end a quarterback trend at Texas.
Texas will not go far if Manning misses any games this season.
The challenge has been making sure the starting quarterback stays healthy throughout the regular season and playoffs.
Feel free to scroll down to the funny videos in this column:
2009 – Colt McCoy sustains an injury during the national championship game against Alabama.
2013 – David Ash sustained a head injury against BYU and missed parts of three games with concussion symptoms. Case McCoy started in his place.
2014 – Ash sustains another brain injury and Swoopes emerges as the starter.
2015 – Jerrod Heard sustains a concussion in the first half of a loss against Texas Tech and is replaced by Swoopes.
2017 – Sam Ehlinger had a concussion and Shane Buechele sustained a bruised shoulder.
2018 – Ehlinger left a game against Baylor early in the first quarter with an injury to his throwing shoulder and did not return. He was replaced with Buechele.
2019 – Ehlinger was forced to play through a rib injury.
2020 – Ehlinger sustained a shoulder injury in the first half against Colorado in the Alamo Bowl. Casey Thompson took over as the quarterback at the start of the third quarter.
2021 – Thompson played with a severe thumb injury. Later that season, Thompson was helped off the field against West Virginia, and Hudson Card, who got rolled up on a possible late hit, left the game but had to limp back onto the field. Charles Wright was a play away from playing.
2022 – Ewers starts as a redshirt freshman, and the Longhorns finish 8-5. However, Card started when Ewers missed three games due to a clavicle sprain.
2023 – Ewers missed two games due to an AC joint sprain in his right shoulder. Maalik Murphy started and struggled in wins against BYU and Kansas State.
2024 – Ewers missed two games due to a torn oblique injury. He also sustained a minor ankle injury against Kentucky but played through it.
It is not just a Texas thing.
The 2024 college football season was riddled with high-profile quarterback injuries that significantly altered team trajectories. In addition to Ewers, Georgia’s Carson Beck hurt his throwing elbow during the SEC title game and missed the postseason, while Missouri’s Brady Cook battled ankle and wrist issues, missing a pivotal game against Oklahoma. Indiana’s Kurtis Rourke remarkably played most of the season with a fully torn ACL, only sitting out one game due to a separate thumb injury. Utah’s Cameron Rising medically retired after numerous injuries.
Elsewhere, Wisconsin’s Tyler Van Dyke suffered a season-ending ACL tear in Week 3, derailing the Badgers’ offensive hopes. NC State’s Grayson McCall endured multiple head injuries, ultimately retiring midseason for medical reasons. Texas Tech’s Behren Morton fought through shoulder injuries all year and missed his team’s bowl game to have elective surgery. And Michigan backup Davis Warren, filling in after J.J. McCarthy’s departure, exited his team’s bowl game with a knee injury. Altogether, the season served as a harsh reminder of the physical toll on quarterbacks.
Sarkisian knows that history as well as you do. He has lived it.
That is one of the reasons he was motivated to sign former Troy quarterback Matthew Caldwell after spring practice concluded.
Caldwell has already played for three teams in his career, including Jackson State and Gardner-Webb before the 2024 season at Troy. He completed 141 of 223 passes for 1,608 yards, 13 touchdowns, and eight interceptions while starting six games last season at Troy. He ran for five touchdowns and caught a 29-yard pass. He earned the Sun Belt’s Offensive Player of the Week honor after throwing for 288 yards and two touchdowns without an interception and rushing for two more touchdowns in a 28-20 win over Georgia Southern.
He is an emergency option you hope never gets used.
“I just think at the end of the day, assessing last season, you know, the idea that we played 16 games, and if we could, we would have won that, we would have had to play 17 football games,” Sarkisian said when I asked him about the addition of Caldwell at the SEC Spring Meetings. “And so, across the board, on our roster, we really try to assess the depth, and do we have the right amount of depth to be able to overcome injuries? Because when you play 17 games, injuries are going to occur. You hope not, but you never know where that can occur. And quarterback is one of them. You know, we’ve had a little bit of bad luck — and a little bit of a bad run — where we’ve got four straight seasons where our starting quarterback has gotten knocked out, and we’ve had to play a backup.
“And we’ve got two really young, talented players in Trey and KJ that we’re excited about, but surely, we go to Ohio State in Week One, and Arch’s shoe comes off — and if those two guys aren’t ready, to be able to put a player in who has a little bit of experience and has played in some games, I think is beneficial for us. I think it’s good for the room.
“We always would like to have four scholarship quarterbacks on our roster. We only had three, and it gave us an opportunity to get a fourth — a guy with a little bit of experience, who’s further in his career, a little older player — that I just think behooves us on a lot of levels, to put ourselves in the best position for the journey of a now long football season.”
It is a long season.
Plenty of time for Manning’s backups to play in the second half of blowout wins.
And if that’s the case, it means Manning is healthy, Texas is dominant, and the Longhorns are right where they want to be.
Chasing championships, not backups.
Funniest Things You Will See This Week
Here is some Manning humor to start your day
It’s time for help
The sports parent group chat is always annoying
Yet, Micah Parsons turned into a stud
Sports On A Dime
1. Forgive me if I refuse to panic about anything recruit-related in June (I am not suggesting Ketch is panicking). It seems like we annually panic in the summer, recruiting picks up during the regular season, Texas flips several key players, and the Longhorns finish with a top-five class in December. See you in December.
2. After seeing Pat Forde’s (Sports Illustrated) tweet this week, I was reminded of Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte’s playful jab at his friend during the recent SEC Spring Meetings:
“You know, what’s interesting is — again, when you have the revenue share starting July 1 — one of the things I’m really proud of is that at the University of Texas, we’re good in all sports. I was the first one to come out and say: we are going to be great in everything we do. And we’re fully funding all of our scholarships to the roster limit.
“When you think about that, for us, it’s about a $10 million expense. But we’re good at men’s swimming, we’re good at women’s swimming. We’re this close to winning our fourth Director’s Cup.
The first time, [Yahoo’s] Pat Forde said, “You have no chance,” because it was COVID — and the next year, I never heard from him again. Crickets. Didn’t hear from him again. And I said, “How about them apples?”
3. ICYMI
4. Some people thought Quinn Ewers was a better quarterback than Cade Klubnik in high school. Some Clemson fans thought he was average before last season. Klubnik’s determination and perseverance is admirable.
“I’ve got the same mentality I did last year, you know, when everybody kind of told me I stunk,” Klubnik said (via The Post and Courier). “So I didn’t really forget about that.
That’s just kind of still what’s going through my mind. I’m not really listening to any of that.”
5. I take voting seriously as a former Pro Football Hall of Fame voter. I do not participate in preseason or postseason voting because I believe a voter should be well-versed on every team. If a writer cannot fully explain what makes the left guard at Alabama better than someone at Ole Miss, you should not participate in voting — especially if you did not watch every game. I have zero issues with the Big 12 getting rid of preseason media polls.
6. Props to the leaders at Texas State for building an athletic program that is about to join the Pac 12 as the conference strives to get back to where it used to be. I can only imagine how the Texans on OB viewed Texas State’s athletic program as children and young adults. Outside of having the reputation for being a party school, I did not know much about the Bobcats. However, Texas State is getting closer to moving from the little kids’ table to the adult table this week. Kudos to that program.
7. If only the results matched the conclusion:
8. PayPal makes it easy for athletes to get paid — just as long as they remember: if a Nigerian prince needs your account info, he’s not offering an NIL deal.
Here is a portion of the press release:
“PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL), a global leader in payments, today announced multi-year agreements with the Big Ten and Big 12 Conferences that will modernize the distribution of institutional payments from universities to student-athletes in a new revenue-sharing model.
The new institutional payments initiative enables athletic departments to seamlessly dispense payments through PayPal, ensuring a secure, efficient, and transparent way to distribute funds to payees. With the funds in their wallets, students will have the option to access all the benefits of PayPal’s commerce ecosystem, from seamlessly buying tickets to a sporting event or purchasing their books for the year at the university bookstore.
The recent court decision, which allows colleges and universities to share revenue directly with student-athletes, stands to revolutionize college sports. This partnership helps make that real by distributing those funds to student-athletes in a fast, simple, and secure way.”
9. Finally, a fight worth looking forward to (bad language alert):
10. It is time for Austin FC to have a Good Ol’ team meeting after its loss on Saturday.