The Texas Longhorns are undoubtedly off to a good start to the 2026 college football season, boasting a 4-1 record with a win over previously top-ranked Ohio State.
But when your quarterback, Arch Manning, is the nephew of Hall of Famer Peyton Manning and two-time Super Bowl champion Eli Manning, “good” doesn’t always feel good enough.
“I think if you took the name off the back of his jersey and you said, ‘Here’s Joe Smith playing quarterback at the University of Texas and here’s a guy who’s beaten four top-10 ranked teams in his last 13 starts,’ we’d be praising the guy,” Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian told reporters on Monday, October 12, after the team’s loss to arch-rival Oklahoma.
“But the expectations are high for him, and he understands that,” the coach continued of his star quarterback living up to the Manning Name. “The expectations are high for all of us, so we’ve got to put our nose back to the grind and get back to work.”
The Longhorns’ first loss came 27-24 against the Sooners on Saturday, October 10, with Arch, 22, throwing two interceptions in the fourth quarter. Once considered a Heisman contender at the start of the season, he has completed 63 percent of his passes through five games, throwing for 10 touchdowns and five interceptions.
“It’s not fun when it’s happening but there’s only one way to respond,” Arch said on Monday. “You can let it linger and let it affect the next week, or you can bounce it back. So you have one choice.”
As Arch prepares for Texas’ next game — a showdown in Austin against Florida on Saturday, October 17 — he is facing his share of criticism.
“We showed arrogance in believing that Arch Manning can do anything. And he almost did, except he finally got in the way of himself,” ESPN’s Paul Finebaum said on a Sunday, October 11 appearance on “The Matt Barrie Show.”
Finebaum, 71, continued, “And I was really troubled by how he had played up to this point. I came away thinking, ‘I don’t know what this guy’s going to do.’ Because he is not the elite player that we all tried to make him out to be. He can be great in moments, as we saw near the end of the game, as he threw that great play that set up the touchdown, but he can just be downright stupid in others.”
Fox college football analyst Joel Klatt seemed to agree. Speaking on his “The Joel Klatt Show” on Monday, he pointed out things he found “worrisome.”
“He doesn’t process information all that quickly,” Klatt, 44, said. “His eyes tend to be in the wrong spot at times. You saw that on the last interception.”
Klatt added, “There are some brilliant throws. So you see the ceiling of Arch, but then the floor is really low.”
