Behind the scenes of Arch Manning’s first start at Texas

AUSTIN, Texas — Arch Manning arrived in rather modest style.

Texas‘ team buses pulled up right on schedule outside Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium at 4:40 p.m. Saturday. Manning stepped out and onto San Jacinto Boulevard in a navy suit paired with a white shirt and a brown striped tie. On his shoulders, he carried a black backpack as well as the modest weight of Texas fans’ hopes and dreams.

Unlike most Longhorn teammates, though, Manning did not wear headphones. On the team’s traditional Stadium Stampede walk into the stadium, lined with fans cheering while holding phones and horns up, the young quarterback took it all in.

“You need some time to just appreciate the opportunity,” Manning said later. “I’m blessed to be in this situation. I don’t take it for granted.”

The fifth-largest crowd in school history packed into DKR to catch a glimpse of the future of Texas football, an extended preview of how a five-star talent with a legendary pedigree will lead this program a year from now.

What those 102,850 folks witnessed during No. 1 Texas’ 51-3 blowout of UL Monroe on Saturday night was a bit more reasonable than their wildest expectations. Manning’s performance in his first college start reminded everyone he’s right on schedule, right where he’s supposed to be in his developmental process.

The redshirt freshman played a lot like a redshirt freshman: Great and not great, with a healthy mix of highlights plays and helpful lessons. He gave himself a C+ grade for the night after completing 15 of 29 passes for 258 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions.

Manning may have the potential for greatness in Steve Sarkisian’s offense, but he has still only played in five college games. Six and a half hours after he first arrived at the stadium, he was feeling the difference.

“The games feel long when you’re in there for the majority of it,” Manning joked. “They’re a lot longer than high school. That was most surprising.”

The Longhorns losing starting QB Quinn Ewers to an oblique injury last week against UTSA opened the door for Manning to wow the college football world. He came in cold off the bench, delivered five touchdowns and made everything look a little too easy. It was a stunning display from a kid with 11 career pass attempts at the college level, a backup with a ton of fame but not much film.

For a week, Manning got to be QB1 while Ewers focused on getting healthy. The sharp uptick in Longhorn fans donning Manning’s No. 16 jersey was easy to spot around campus on Saturday afternoon. Inside the stadium team shop, authentic Ewers and Manning jerseys were going for $149.99. There were plenty of Ewers jerseys on the rack three hours before kickoff, but the Manning threads were long gone. The shop produced another run of his jerseys this week in anticipation of demand, but they went fast.

Brian and Jessica McCreary both donned No. 16 jerseys as they awaited the team’s arrival on Bevo Boulevard. They bought theirs last year. They have Ewers jerseys at home, too. The husband and wife were eager to see more from Manning, but Brian sees the big picture as clearly as Texas’ head coach.

“If you know football,” he said, “you know Quinn is our quarterback.”

Ewers didn’t enjoy missing a game but stayed upbeat on Texas’ sideline. The 25-game starter, wearing his No. 3 jersey over a jacket, had an earpiece in his left ear to hear playcalls and chatted with Manning throughout. But the assignment for the night wasn’t to coach him up. Ewers needed to get Manning to relax.

“We talked about him doing his best to keep it light with Arch,” Sarkisian said. “Because when Arch keeps it light, he’s really, really good. We try to not let him get too, too focused.”

Manning needed that encouragement early. His opening drive ended abruptly when he forced a throw under pressure on second-and-4 that was picked off. He knew he should’ve thrown it away. Rookie mistake. On the bench, left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. and center Jake Majors talked him down.

“It’s gonna happen, bro,” Banks said he told him. “Keep pushing.”

“Just keep being you,” Majors said.

“He holds himself to a high standard, which is good,” Banks said afterward, “so he definitely can have his moments where he gets real hard on himself.”

Sarkisian demands that next-play mentality to operate his system. The message in the week leading up to Manning’s first start: Don’t overanalyze, just execute. The game plan called for deep shots on ULM’s secondary. Manning hit quite a few, picking up 210 of his passing yards on eight completions.

The tradeoff? “When you get in that mode, sometimes you can start to get a little bit greedy,” Sarkisian said. Ask Manning what throws he’d like back and he can think of a few overthrows and underthrows in the second half that could’ve been checkdowns to easier completions.

“He was going to have some lessons learned,” Sarkisian said, “and I think that’s what tonight was about.”

It was never going to be about a quarterback controversy. Sarkisian made sure to set the record straight on Thursday. It’s not just that Ewers is his quarterback. He foresees Ewers leading a national title run, going to New York for the Heisman Trophy ceremony and proving he’s a top-five draft pick. All of those goals are still on the table.

You won’t hear many head coaches publicly put that out there, but it speaks to Sarkisian’s confidence. Colt McCoy, back in town to be inducted into the Texas Athletics Hall of Honor, has lived with those expectations.

The last quarterback to lead Texas to a national title game sees greatness in both. McCoy knows Manning getting these reps will ultimately be beneficial for the entire team over the long haul of a 12-team College Football Playoff and the deep run this team is trying to make. And the Longhorn legend knows better than anyone what it takes to carry that weight.

“There’s a lot of pressure playing quarterback at the University of Texas, there’s a lot of expectations, everything that goes along with sort of being the guy,” McCoy said. “For them, I would just say you have a wonderful team around you.

“I mean, this team is built to win a championship. Just go out there and execute and stay focused and lean on each other.”