Arch Manning Needs Realistic Expectations Amid Name Attention

The story surrounding Arch Manning at Texas would likely be much simpler if head coach Steve Sarkisian stopped tossing unnecessary fuel onto the fire. Everyone understands that Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning receives far more attention than peers across the country simply because of his last name, and that is a given fact. This article contains affiliate links to legal sports betting partners, so FOX News might get paid if you sign up or place a wager on these sites. That content was created by a team working independently from the main newsroom at FOX.

However, people must start putting realistic expectations on the guy leading the Texas offense right now. Arch Manning is currently a decent college quarterback who sometimes plays like an average passer that has cost his team at least one game this season. Add to that reality the fact he serves as the face of Texas football today, and obviously there could be moments where the latest Manning family quarterback feels immense pressure from fans. My goodness though, his head coach is not doing him any favors whatsoever from a public perception standpoint these days.

If the player were named Joe Smith instead, the Texas football team might already be playing a different quarterback as starter. On Monday Steve Sarkisian faced a reporter asking if incredible expectations on the quarterback would vanish if you took the name Manning off the back of his jersey entirely. After starting his answer with cliché talk about this being a team game which it is and the scheme of running the Texas offense, Sarkisian delivered this gem of an answer to everyone listening closely.

I think if you took the name off the back of his jersey and said here is Joe Smith playing quarterback at the University of Texas while beating four top-10 ranked teams in his last thirteen starts we would be praising him instead, Sarkisian noted clearly during that press conference. The expectations are high for him but he understands that reality quite well, according to the coach who added that expectations are also high for all of us on staff and players alike. So we gotta put our nose back to the grind and get back to work immediately after that statement was made public by the head coach.

For the love of all that is good please save us from this nonsense regarding name changes and hypothetical scenarios about Joe Smith taking over duties at Texas. If Manning was actually named Joe Smith Steve Sarkisian would have already given backup quarterbacks at least a shot at overtaking Arch Manning as the starting quarterback for games ahead. The reality is that Arch has been very inconsistent at Texas this season but that situation is okay to some degree without fanfare or excessive coaching commentary driving fans crazy every single week of fall sports action.

He will not impress fans every single week, a simple truth everyone in college football should have grasped by now. The Longhorns are fortunate they sit at three losses instead of four, considering Ohio State collapsed late and Tennessee struggles to score without its running game. Arch gets no help from Sarkisian, yet the quarterback was never a first-round pick. We have reached a point where we try to explain away his average play by blaming his fame for the harsh criticism he faces when things go south. The reality is stark: if this occurred at any other school, Arch would face identical scrutiny as Josh Hoover did in Indiana or Dante Moore at Oregon. Because Steve Sarkisian insists on repeating these same excuses regarding his signal caller, the public anger will only grow if Manning continues to underperform.

Arch Manning officially enters a PR spin cycle, and the final message sounds terrible. He does not resemble a top-10 NFL Draft selection or even the best quarterback in this potential class. Yet people still act as though his surname alone would erase all valid criticism of his performance. There is a hard reality that without the last name Manning, we might not be discussing him at Texas. Instead, we could be talking about the starter for another Group of Six team. At some point, Sarkisian must realize these answers only hurt his quarterback and fuel further unrest.