Quinn Ewers had a successful three-year run as the starting quarterback of the Texas Longhorns, leading the team to 26 wins and back-to-back College Football Playoff semifinal appearances. Yet, despite all of Ewers’ success, the buzz surrounding the start of the Arch Manning era is much greater than it was at any point for Ewers. Among those anxiously awaiting Manning’s first game as the unquestioned starter against Ohio State on Aug. 30 in Columbus is former quarterback and Texas legend Colt McCoy. On the latest episode of his “Clean Pocket” podcast, McCoy had Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian on to pick his brain about transitioning from Ewers to Manning next season, and the fifth-year UT coach revealed an interesting nugget about how Manning is perceived among the rest of his Texas teammates. “[His] leadership – this guy’s got a charismatic…you can feel it, and that’s not a knock against Quinn, everybody leads differently, but he’s got something about him that guys gravitate to. That’s always a great thing to have as a quarterback,” Sarkisian said.
You want the players to play for you, not in spite of you. [As the quarterback] you want those guys to want to play even better because of who you are, not because ‘I need to do it for me, man,’ – they want to do it, and Arch has that about him. He’s talented and nobody works harder, nobody is in the film room more.” Though it was only a four-game sample size, Manning gave Texas fans plenty to be excited about in 2025. The freshman signal-caller threw for 939 yards, nine touchdowns and two interceptions while adding 108 yards and four more scores on the ground and going 3-0 as the starter. He even led Texas to its first-ever win as a member of the SEC in a 35-13 victory over Mississippi State on Sept. 28. Manning performed so well that there were even calls for Sarkisian to bench Ewers and play him down the stretch as Texas made its runt to the College Football Playoff. Sarkisian stayed the course, but he admits he saw enough from Manning to know the Longhorns are in good hands.
“I think we saw some really (good) things, we saw some athleticism that probably surprised a lot of people,” Sarkisian added. “His ability to throw the deep ball, and the deep ball in our system and how important that is to take advantage of his 1-on-1 opportunities, it’s huge.
Leave a Reply