Arch Manning’s Redemption: How Texas Stays Alive in SEC Race

Never before has a win over Vanderbilt been so meaningful for the energy around player than Texas’ 34-31 defeat of the Commodores was for Arch Manning.

Going 25-of-33 for 328 yards with three touchdown passes and no interceptions, and leading the Longhorns to a 34-31 win over No. 9-ranked Vanderbilt that was more impressive than the final score suggests, Manning delivered the best game of his career.

His performance a week prior in an overtime win against Mississippi State a week prior was slightly better statistical: 346 passing yards, another three touchdowns through the air and one on the ground.

Rallying to beat the Bulldogs was also pivotal for a season that could have gone far south had the Longhorns lost. But for Manning to outperform his quarterback counterpart in Diego Pavia, a rising Heisman Trophy contender, and lead Texas to a top-10 win, suggests maybe the high hopes pinned to him aren’t as much misplaced as mistimed.

“It’s been a long month, I’ll tell you that,” Manning said to reporters following Saturday’s win, Texas’ fourth straight. “But I think we’ve all grown closer together.”

Deeming the first two months of Texas football’s Manning era a disappointment fails to convey the loftiness of the expectations. Oddsmakers deemed Manning the preseason Heisman Trophy favorite, AP voters tabbed the Longhorns No. 1 for the first time in program history, and the quarterback had seemingly as many endorsement deals as he had college snaps.

So, when Texas went 3-2 through its first five, Newton’s Third Law of Motion inevitably applied. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Responses to the Longhorns’ struggles, and more specifically Manning’s struggles, were every bit as deflating as the preseason hype was inflated. At least one national outlet labeled Manning a flop, a term reflective of college football’s shift toward professionalism.

Manning’s flood of endorsement deals confirm that, indeed, the sport’s highest level is now professional in the most literal sense. And in professional football, the trend for quarterbacks in the last decade or so is that a signal caller can be deemed a bust within two seasons.

The shorter timeline of a player’s career in college — Vanderbilt’s Pavia eyeing a seventh season notwithstanding — may shorten the timeline. However, in the same way that his first two months thudded in comparison to the expectations, Manning has an opportunity to defy the disappointment in the coming month.

He started November the right way with one top 10 win, and could lead the Longhorns to as many as three. After a Nov. 8 bye, Texas sees Georgia in a rematch of the 2024 SEC Championship Game.

Rival Texas A&M looms on Thanksgiving weekend with a currently perfect record and designs on a first-ever SEC title game appearance and berth to the College Football Playoff.

As Manning put it on Saturday, “November’s going to be no joke.”

Just as serious as the upcoming schedule are Texas’ prospects of returning to the Playoff.

As improbable as it may have seemed after Manning was 16-of-29 with a pair of interceptions in an Oct. 4 loss to Florida, or even after a win at Kentucky when he went 12-of-27 for just 132 yards, the Longhorns remain alive.

From a Heisman favorite to a flop to comeback, Manning’s had quite the career arc — and it hasn’t even been a full season.