Arch Manning gives himself a C+ for first start against ULM

The young Longhorns quarterback went throw some growing pains in throwing two interceptions and completing just 52 percent of his passes.

AUSTIN, Texas — On the first drive of the first start for Quinn Ewers for the Texas Longhorns, the redshirt freshman threw an ill-advised interception in a blowout win over the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks.

On the first drive of the first start for Arch Manning for the Texas Longhorns, the redshirt freshman threw an ill-advised interception in a blowout win over the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks.

Under pressure, Manning was able to make the first defender miss in the backfield before forcing the ball into triple coverage while taking a big hit.

“Obviously the first pick, it’s like 2nd and 3, just throw the ball away — let’s play another down,” Manning said after the 51-3 victory, reflecting on the play he most wanted back.

Coming off of Manning’s sensational performance in relief of Ewers in the 56-7 win over UTSA last week, there were always bound to be some growing pains for the nation’s No. 1 prospect in the 2022 recruiting class, just as there were growing pains for the nation’s No. 1 recruit in the 2021 recruiting class. The fact that Manning’s first mistake at Texas had so many parallel’s to Ewers’ first mistake at Texas only added some heightened irony to the miscue.

It was also the first of two interceptions thrown by Manning in a 15-of-29 passing performance that accumulated 258 yards and two touchdowns and featured some impressive plays, but also demonstrated plenty of room for growth.

Asked in the post-game press conference to grade his performance, Manning gave himself a C+.

“The games feel long when you’re in there for the majority of it — they’re a lot longer than high school,” Manning said.

And that means plenty of time to make mistakes like throwing interceptions, with the second coming on a throw that bounced off the hands of junior running back Jaydon Blue, and missing some open receivers, like Manning did when Blue came open on a wheel route late in the second quarterback and was overthrown, resulting in an incompletion instead of an easy 69-yard touchdown.

With Blue so wide open he’d likely score even if the ball was underthrown, Manning did the one thing he couldn’t do — deliver an uncatchable pass.

In the way that things tend to work for young quarterbacks, the second interception came on the following play.

“Obviously it’s a little easier said than done to just forget about those things, but I think that’s all you can do is move on and keep trying to help your team win in any way, so you’ve just got to flush it,” Manning said.

With the inevitability of facing adversity as a quarterback, the resilience to bounce back quickly is a defining trait, and one that Manning did evidence in his first start — on his first pass attempt after the interception, one of many shot plays dialed up by Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian in his aggressive game plan produced a 56-yard completion to junior wide receiver Isaiah Bond, hitting a window of just 1.5 yards.

“I was very proud of him tonight, because, hey, interceptions happen, like, that’s part of the life of being a quarterback. Hopefully over time they start to get reduced. How he responds to those and then continues to move the offense is really important and he did a good job of that tonight,” Sarkisian said.

“A year ago, after that pick that might have taken a minute for him to rebound from and I thought he responded really well mentally,” the Texas head coach added on Monday. “I thought his poise and composure was really good Saturday.”

The bomb to Bond was one of 10 pass attempts over 20 yards by Manning during a game in which his average depth of target was 14.8 yards, the longest for a Texas quarterback since the 2021 loss to Arkansas. Manning completed three of those passes for 119 yards and a touchdown, along with his first interception.

“I think when you have good playmakers and the O-line blocks well, you’re able to throw the ball deep. We did that a lot tonight, so it was fun for me,” Manning said.

Sarkisian revealed during his post-game press conference that the game plan was to take aggressive deep shots at a high rate against ULM based on the defensive looks Texas was getting — “the game plan was a little bit big, little in that way,” said the Longhorns head coach. When Sarkisian was putting together the game’s call sheet with quarterbacks coach AJ Milwee, working on the openers and must calls, he looked up and said, “Man, there’s a lot of shots on here.”

“Arch is a really good deep ball thrower and gives guys chances to go make plays on those shots down the field,” Sarkisian said.

One of those shots was an impressive 46-yard completion to convert a 3rd and 10 deep in Texas territory early in the second quarter on a drive that saw the Longhorns take a 28-0 lead.

The timing wasn’t always there for Manning, who slightly overthrew senior wide receiver Silas Bolden on a shot play that was initially ruled a 43-yard gain on a diving catch by the 5’8 receiver that replay overturned in a questionable decision.

On the previous drive, Manning had missed short targeting freshman wide receiver Ryan Wingo, who had beat the cornerback, but because the ball was underthrown instead of overthrown, Wingo was able to adjust to it and drew a pass-interference penalty as a result.

In assessing Manning’s performance as less efficient than he would prefer, Sarkisian took some of the responsibility for his quarterback forcing some deep throws instead of taking check downs.

“When you get into that mode a little bit, sometimes you can start to get a little bit greedy and that’s a challenging thing, especially a guy making his first career start, because you feel like you’re just hitting them and you want to keep you want to keep hitting those things. So to be fair to him, I maybe should have found some other just kind of completions in there to keep his rhythm,” Sarkisian said.

Manning certainly didn’t have much rhythm with Blue, targeting the speedy Texas running back seven times, but only completing one pass, a three-yard touchdown that put the Horns up 14-0 midway through the first quarter. Blue took some of the blame on Monday after PFF credited him with three drops.

“I dropped a few passes, so I feel like there’s areas that I could improve in or play better,” Blue said.

So while Sarkisian would prefer that Manning reduce his number of downfield attempts by several, the combination of not checking the ball down to Blue and not connecting with the Klein Cain product on so many targets, including the second interception, was a huge factor in Manning’s lack of efficiency in completing just 52 percent of his attempts.

“To continue to try and take what’s there, not to force anything, the shots will come with Stark’s offense, so just try and move the ball forward every play and one play at a time,” Manning said.

That the young quarterback’s self-assessment of his play matched that of his head coach minutes earlier speaks to the maturity that Manning already possesses. It’s an approach that Ewers tried to magnify, taking on duties as a hype man for Manning, who plays at his highest level when he’s loose and confident and avoiding any “paralysis by analysis,” as Sarkisian puts it.

“I think sometimes I play the best when I’m just having fun and keeping it light hearted and just playing the game I love, so I think that’s a good reminder for me,” Manning said.

Ultimately, Manning’s status as an unfinished product is hardly surprising, and now the hype around him can die down a bit as he tries to grow from the low moments against ULM.

“To think he was going to come out and play a perfect game, I don’t think anybody in here thought that,” Sarkisian said.

“I thought he was going to prepare really well, work really hard, do everything he could to play good football, he was going to have some some some lessons learned, and I think that that’s what tonight was about.”