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The Arch Manning era is off to a rockier start than any Texas Longhorn observer anticipated. It was easy to dismiss Manning’s lackluster performance against Ohio State because his first road start came against the defending national champions. Manning completed 17 of 30 passes for 170 yards, one touchdown, one interception, and finished with a 108.6 passer rating. That’s understandable. Thank goodness for the tune-up games in September to get him going in the right direction, right? Except Manning struggled against San Jose State and wasn’t pulled until late in the fourth quarter, despite the Texas offense sputtering from start to finish. Well, just wait until he rebounds against UTEP, right? Instead, Manning completed 11 of 25 passes for 114 yards, one touchdown, one interception, and finished with an 87.5 passer rating.
Many Longhorn observers believed former quarterback Quinn Ewers was the one guy holding this offense back in the offseason. Nobody realized Ewers was actually the person holding this offense together.
Manning is currently the 13th-ranked quarterback in the SEC in passing yards per game (193 YPG; Oklahoma’s John Mateer leads the conference with 314.7 YPG). Manning’s 128.74 quarterback rating also ranks 13th in the SEC (Alabama’s Ty Simpson leads the conference at 186.63). Manning has thrown three interceptions this season, and only two quarterbacks in the SEC have thrown more (Ole Miss’s Austin Simmons, 4; Florida’s DJ Lagway, 6).
Something is off with Arch Manning, and it’s more than just growing pains.
The excuses are gone, the sample size is real, and the concerns are no longer hypothetical. If Texas doesn’t figure out what’s wrong with its third-year quarterback – and fast – the sirens will be blaring louder when the SEC schedule begins in October.
“I feel like we’ve done enough with him to have a pretty good understanding of who he is as a player and what he’s capable of,” Sarkisian said after a 27-10 win against UTEP. “I know there’s a lot of football in there that’s high-level, quality football. So is my expectation of him as a player high? Yes. Do I expect him to play the best football of his career in the first three games of this season? Probably not. That wouldn’t be fair.
“Our job as coaches is to work him toward that, so that he continually improves throughout the season, like all of our players. I think it’s too early to say, ‘Give him a series [off].’ He provides enough offense for us, where I can go a different way – using his legs to provide offense. Obviously, he scored two touchdowns with his legs today, and he had a nice two-minute drive at the end of the first half to score. There was a lot of good in there. I just know, and I think we’d all agree, that there’s better in there. That’s to come. It’s a race to get there as fast as we can.”
The mere fact that Texas is trailing in this race is hard to comprehend.
Sarkisian shot down the belief that Manning might be fighting through an injury. Everyone remembers the odd comparison Sarkisian made between Manning grimacing after a throw and the faces you make on the toilet. For the record, I hope Sarkisian never makes a toilet reference again—unless Clorox becomes the official toilet bowl cleaning partner of the Longhorns.
Honestly, Longhorn fans should hope Sarkisian is withholding information. He declined to admit anything was wrong with Casey Thompson in his first season at Texas. Thompson became so frustrated with criticism about his poor play that he had someone share a photo of the badly bruised thumb on his throwing hand.
Xavier Worthy was criticized by the fan base for dropping passes during the 2022 season. He dropped three against Washington in the Alamo Bowl. We later learned Worthy played the back half of that season with a broken hand.
Then there was this back-and-forth with reporters about Worthy’s injury in the spring of 2023:
Associated Press: “Why was there secrecy about that?”
Sarkisian: “Because I don’t have to tell you.”
AP: “Ok, I understand that, but Xavier clearly had a year that people were kind of questioning what was going on with him. This would have been a pretty big development … ”
Sarkisian: “Our opponents would have known too.”
AP: “OK.”
Sarkisian: “We have a lot of injuries that can occur on our team that may not keep a player out, that we don’t disclose A, to protect the player, and B, to protect the program.”
Statesman follow-up: “In hindsight, do you wish you’d have played somebody else?”
Sarkisian: “I felt like he was the best option.”
Sarkisian may be using the same approach with Manning.
However, if Manning is 100 percent healthy, then Longhorn fans must accept a cruel reality.
This season is all about getting Manning ready for 2026.
If so, that will lead to a lot of frustrating questions.
Why is a 5-star QB not ready entering Year 3?
What is AJ Milwee doing to develop quarterbacks?
Has Texas provided Manning with enough playmakers on offense?
Should Sarkisian allow Manning to be a dual-threat QB?
“You’re always evaluating and feeling the flow of the game as a coach, play caller, offensive staff,” Sarkisian said. “You try to get back to some things you know he really likes, that we talked about all week long. When that’s not hitting, I always keep in my back pocket that I need to let him run around and start playing football.
“I felt like he pressed some tonight. He knew he was missing throws he’s comfortable making. Then you start skipping reads, scrambling, and relying on his legs too much. That’s always my caution. When you have some success with your legs, you start to rely on them, and then we’re out of scheme and just playing athlete football. That can get you so far, but sooner or later it catches up with you.”
Or you’re Vince Young on 4th-and-5, nobody catches you, and Texas wins a national championship.
Oh, and another question: if Manning is not hurt, what is up with his mechanics?
“I think when you press a little bit, you kind of speed up the delivery, then slow it down,” Sarkisian said. “I know that’s an oxymoron, but if you think about trying to speed your arm up then decelerate it – like for bad golfers, when you try to swing hard and then slow down at the end to make contact—that’s not a recipe for success. That’s not a good recipe for throwing a football either. I felt like that happened at times today.
“I’ll have to evaluate the tape more to see if there’s anything else fundamentally I didn’t like, but that one thing showed up, where he speeds himself up and then slows himself down. He plays better when he’s more rhythmic. There were some beautiful rhythm throws – the deep curl to Parker early, the middle route to Ryan Wingo late, the out route for the touchdown to Ryan. Those were nice rhythm throws. That’s when he’s at his best, and it’s our job to find that rhythm in him.”
The Longhorn offense was not supposed to lack rhythm with Manning.
This team was supposed to have more rhythm than it ever did under Ewers.
Three games in and one-fourth of the Longhorns’ season is gone. Texas has one more “tune-up” game on Saturday before traveling to play Florida on October 4. If this offense doesn’t improve, that Oklahoma game on October 11 could get ugly.
Something is off with Arch Manning, and it’s more than just growing pains.
“I’d say for the most part it’s all mental,” Sarkisian said. “When you really think about it, he has the physical ability to make throws. Now it’s trust, belief, confidence—all those things play into it. His ability to move on to the next play is something we’ve got to continue to work on. Don’t harbor the last plays. Refocus, recalibrate, and focus on the next play.
“Until you get put into these fires, you have to learn in real time. It’s easy on the outside looking in to say, ‘Just do this, just do that.’ Now he’s in the fire. Now we’ve got to make adjustments in real time. That’s the fun part—we know what it is, it’s tangible, and we can get it done. We’ve been down this road before, and we’ve righted the ship before. We’ll get there.”
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