Through five starts this season, Texas quarterback Arch Manning has been fine — and that’s bad, because the expectation ahead of the 2025 college football season was for him to lead the Longhorns to a championship title.
It’s not just that he began this season as the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy, but Texas ranked as the preseason No. 1 in my initial top 25 rankings, as well as the first AP Top 25 poll and initial NCAA coaches poll. Who the best team in the country was rested on that belief, and we had good reason to believe Manning would be one of those rare players — and they are rare — who enter into their first season as a starting quarterback at the highest level of competition in the sport and prove themselves elite right out of the gate.
Tim Tebow was elite from the moment he could start for Urban Meyer at Florida. Jameis Winston and Johnny Manziel were elite at Florida State and Texas A&M, respectively. Jalen Hurts became the first true freshman to start at quarterback for Alabama in 32 years and ended the season as the SEC Offensive Player of the Year. Trevor Lawrence came off the bench in 2018 and led Clemson to an undefeated 15-0 season and a national title in the four-team College Football Playoff era.
It has been done, and it’s likely to happen again given the volatility of the sport since the advent of immediate eligibility for all players who choose to enter the transfer portal. However, it’s more likely that a talent like Manning will need time to mature and gather experience as a full-time starter before we can expect him to compete for the Heisman in earnest.
Last week against Florida, Manning played well. He was pressured on 61.9% of the 26 times he dropped back to pass, while being sacked six times, according to Pro Football Focus. He still completed 16 of 29 pass attempts for 263 yards (9.1 yards per attempt) with two touchdowns and two interceptions in a one-score game where Texas’ defense gave up a 298-yard passer, 127-yard rusher and 100-yard receiver in the Longhorns’ second loss of the season.
However, Manning hasn’t been as good at letting the ball go as some — even head coach Steve Sarkisian — thought he would be. Against the Gators, Manning held the ball for an average of nearly 3.5 seconds per dropback, which is half-of-a-second longer than his offensive line can be expected to pass block before the rush finds him.
“I think it all depends on what you’re trying to do offensively,” Sarkisian said Monday. “Obviously, Arch is a guy who can push the ball down the field. We’re trying to, especially early on in the season, … play to his strengths and trying to do some things that he does well. That requires him holding the ball for half a second or so longer. So, when you do that, it stresses the protection some.”
Manning has started just one game this season where he didn’t get sacked (UTEP) and one game in which he hasn’t thrown an interception (Sam Houston). He has accounted for more than 1,300 yards, 16 total scores and five picks.
Manning is on track to finish with a decent first season as a full-time starter, especially compared to other players who were expected to compete for the Heisman this season like LSU QB Garett Nussmeier (1,142 total yards, 8 total TDs, 3 INTs), Clemson QB Cade Klubnik (1,306 total yards, 11 total TDs, 4 INTs) or Penn State QB Drew Allar (1,110 total yards, 8 total TDs, 2 INTs). Each of these three aforementioned signal-callers had played a full season at their respective programs as the starter and led a preseason top 10 team like Manning — and Manning is outpacing them.
The scheme Sarkisian has put together for Manning looks different from the one he used with Quinn Ewers that didn’t lead to an invitation to the Heisman Trophy ceremony but did result in two appearances in conference championships, a conference title win and two appearances in the College Football Playoff in both its four-team and 12-team format.
It’s almost easy to forget that Texas went 8-5 in Ewers’ first year as the starter with an Alamo Bowl loss to Washington — a team it faced in the semifinals of the CFP the next year. With Ewers, a former No. 1 overall recruit at one point in his high school career, it just took time. With Manning, another former No. 1 overall recruit, it’ll take time too.
It’s Oklahoma this week, and the Sooners’ defense isn’t interested in helping Texas feel the hurt of its growing pains any less. That still doesn’t mean Manning & Co. will stop growing, and that’s a process that simply takes time.
Let the man grow up, and his talent will follow through.
RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports. Follow him @RJ_Young.
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