Arch Manning’s career story has been far from the fairy tale many envisioned for the former five-star recruit. It’s been anything but happily ever after: the latest in the Manning quarterback bloodline has gone from anticipated backup to disappointing “flop” to a promising star on the rise, and that’s just from his first season as the starter in Austin.
His second season leading the Longhorns appears to follow a similar trend line. With Texas riding a two-game losing streak, the first since the Longhorns went six games without a win in Steve Sarkisian’s first year in charge, the narrative around Manning looked awfully familiar to the “biggest flop” in college football history.
So much so that talk of potentially benching Manning became more substantive. Yet, now, fresh off snapping Texas’s two-game skid with a 34-27 win over Ole Miss, Manning looks to have turned the corner.
Correcting the Narrative
The young quarterback has never been one for the spotlight that comes with starting at Texas. At the microphone, he’s a rather soft-spoken, well-calculated speaker who doesn’t often give headline-altering quotes.
However, he admitted on Saturday that he likes being the “underdog,” the one counted out. Manning’s response to two weeks of intense scrutiny after back-to-back losses ended with him turning the football over needed no words.
He delivered a resounding statement the one place he needed too: on the field.
His final stat line, 212 yards on 18 of 30 passing with a touchdown and two interceptions, plus two scores on the ground, isn’t much to write home about. But the box score doesn’t tell the whole story.
At least in Manning’s case from Saturday. Yes, he was still far from perfect and repeated several mistakes that had doomed him in the previous two games, including an untimely fourth-quarter turnover.
Yet he also showed signs he could back up that five-star rating. He had several big-time, NFL-level throws: one that led to a touchdown for Ryan Wingo, and another that Cam Coleman dropped, which would’ve been a walk-in touchdown.
But flashes have always been there with Manning. Even when he struggled over the last two weeks, the Texas quarterback still had moments when he showed what he was capable of. He still hasn't quite put it together in his career on the Forty Acres, and he may never do so.
The biggest difference for Manning last night was that he never got rattled. Not even after the late-game interception on a forced go-ball to Emmett Mosley, or after a controversial missed targeting call that forced him out of the game in the second half on a third-and-long.
Manning stayed the course and did his part to keep Texas from losing on perhaps one of the biggest nights of his career.
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