The Arch Manning hype has divided people in the college football world. As one group tries to justify why people tout him as a first-round pick, others highly doubt his skill level, given an extremely small sample size. Despite his head-turning last name and Steve Sarkisian’s stellar history of developing quarterbacks, the conversation has slowly moved from “can he?” to “does he really need to?”
Let’s get this out of the way: Arch Manning is the most talked-about third-year freshman. Chris Phillips put it bluntly to CJ Vogel of On Texas Football on SEC Unfiltered. “We’ve all talked about the Arch mania and the expectations are so crazy… I heard you make this point about Texas can still reach all of its goals even if Arch is just okay. He doesn’t have to be all-world, win the Heisman… But I’m curious, do you feel like that hype is it coming more internally like within the fan base, within the Texas community? Is it coming more from the national side of things?”
Vogel responded with the kind of layered nuance that Texas fans need to hear, whether they want to or not. “Yeah, look, fair questions all the way across. Look, Texas fans are excited, right, since having the first few glimpses of him a year ago, you know, to now finally having him as the true starting quarterback of the team. There wasn’t a louder applause in DKR a year ago than him just trotting on the field to kneel out a game, right? That’s what came with Arch Manning being a Texas Longhorn.” In short, the hype train left the station before Arch Manning ever completed a meaningful pass. And now it’s headed full-speed into an opener against the defending national champs.
NCAA, College League, USA Football: Texas at Vanderbilt Oct 26, 2024 Nashville, Tennessee, USA Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning 16 walks off the field after defeating the Vanderbilt Commodores at FirstBank Stadium. Nashville FirstBank Stadium Tennessee USA, EDITORIAL USE ONLY PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xStevexRobertsx 20241026_gma_ra1_0398
Vogel doubled down: “That hype is going to be there, right? First game against Ohio State, the national media, the two of us talking about it, that’s not going to go away anytime soon… But for Arch, it’s going to be really interesting because Texas is going to be talented.” And this is where the expectations start to bend in two directions. Vogel argued that we’ll see a shift—from preseason scoffing about overhype and sample size (“he played Mississippi State and ULM a year ago”)—to midseason justifications that Texas’ talent is propping him up. “No, he’s a talented quarterback,” Vogel insisted.
“And I think the ratings out of high school prove that… his ability to not just throw the football accurately or on the move, but to combine that with the Manning ability to understand defenses, to diagnose defenses pre-snap. Oh, and he can run the football pretty well. That’s something that we haven’t seen with a Manning quarterback.”
But hype alone doesn’t win you games in Gainesville or Athens. “To win the national championship, he is going to have to live up to those preseason expectations of being a game breaker,” Vogel said. “A guy that truly, you know, kind of tilts the tables one way or the other with his play. And I do believe that he is capable of doing that throughout the course of a 15- or 16-game season.” That’s the needle Arch Manning has to thread—show enough poise and flair early, then turn up the dial when the playoff pressure mounts.
Of course, it would help Arch if, at times, he could just say “Set, hut,” hand the ball to CJ Baxter or Quintrevion Wisner, and let the run game breathe for him. Steve Sarkisian needs this offense to finish drives, especially in the red zone. They’ve got to convert short-yardage spots and steal back tempo when defenses clamp down. If that run game stalls, UT risks looking like last year’s team again—one that flinched at the finish line, especially when Quinn Ewers was off-script. The road isn’t easy. Sark and Arch Manning will have to navigate trench wars against Ohio State, Georgia, Florida, and Oklahoma.
Arch Manning madness or Arch mirage?
If the Texas Longhorns flame out in the SEC with a 9-3 finish, it won’t just be the fans in Austin flipping tables—it’ll be the national media lighting the torches. That’s exactly what FOX’s National College Sports Reporter Trey Wallace stirred up when he joined That SEC Podcast and delivered what he called his hottest take of the season.
“Texas goes 9-3 this year,” Wallace declared. “I enjoy the Arch Manning hype… but damn, he’s played two sisters of the poor and now all of the sudden, he’s QB1 and a first-round pick?” Wallace didn’t stop there. His bigger concern? The Texas faithful and national analysts alike are putting the cart way ahead of the Manning horse. There’s a chance he’s the guy, but until he takes on serious defenses, people cannot take him that seriously.
Now, that might sound like throwing cold water on a bonfire, but Wallace’s skepticism is rooted in the obvious: no one has truly battle-tested Arch yet. As the Longhorns gear up for their opener against the defending champs, Ohio State, the margin for error shrinks fast. The gauntlet is real. So, if Texas stumbles early, Sark and Arch better buckle those chin straps tight.
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