Arch Manning is walking into this season a different guy and that should worry anybody who has Texas circled on the schedule.
The Longhorns quarterback didn’t just spend his offseason building his body back up. He spent it building something harder to measure and even harder to stop: real command of his locker room.
Arkansas fans weren’t wanting to hear this if they can analyze Andrea Adelson’s story at ESPN.com. About the only consistent criticism of Manning appeared to me things that football maturity would probably solve.
That shift didn’t happen overnight. Manning struggled some as a first-year starter and it clearly weighed on him.
At some point he made a choice to quit being frustrated with himself and start playing loose instead like he had nothing left to lose. That one decision changed everything for him and for the team around him.
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian has watched the whole transformation up close and he doesn’t think it’s an accident.
“He had never been the starter,” Sarkisian said. “A lot of us were pushing Arch to become the leader because it was his team. Arch always took the idea ‘I haven’t earned it yet.’ It was almost ingrained in him from his grandpa. You’ve got to earn everything you get.”
The Razorbacks will face the Longhorns in Austin in the next-to-last regular season game before finishing against LSU a week later.
A tough year built a tougher leader
Sarkisian said that Manning carried a mindset where nothing gets handed to you and everything has to be earned first including respect. According to Sarkisian it took hitting rock bottom for Manning to finally push past that thinking.
“Ironically it took failure,” Sarkisian said. “It took all this adversity that he had to go through for him to get on the other side of it.”
Once Manning made it through that rough patch something changed inside the whole Texas roster. Sarkisian said the players already liked Manning before but that isn’t the same as respecting him.
“That’s really when the team as much as they loved him before that’s when the respect kicked in because they’re like ‘that guy’s mentally tough and he’s physically tough,'” Sarkisian said. “You can feel it that this is his team.”
That’s the part that should scare teams like Arkansas or Mississippi State or anyone else circling a matchup with the Longhorns.
A quarterback who has his teammates fully behind him tends to play with an edge that shows up on Saturdays.
Building chemistry away from the field
Manning missed most of spring practice with a foot injury but once doctors cleared him he got straight to work with a retooled group of running backs and receivers.
He didn’t wait around either.
He brought those new pieces including transfer running back Hollywood Smothers down to his hometown of New Orleans for extra throwing sessions and some good food.
“It was great,” Manning said. “We got a lot of good work in. I needed to have them down and see them a few extra times because I didn’t do spring ball. I’m glad they came. They’re a bunch of good guys. They all get along too which is nice. Having a bunch of guys play the same position and be best friends is unique.”
That kind of bonding matters more than fans might think.
A quarterback who trusts his skill players and vice versa cuts down on mistakes and speeds up how fast an offense clicks once the games start counting.
Texas also spent part of the offseason sharpening its short-yardage game which could make those crucial third and fourth down snaps even tougher to stop this fall.
Put it together and you get a Texas team that isn’t just talented on paper.
It’s a team that believes in its quarterback because he earned that belief the hard way. The Hogs and every other name on the Longhorns schedule this year should take that seriously.
Key takeaways
- Arch Manning’s leadership grew directly out of last season’s early struggles and adversity
- Steve Sarkisian says the Texas roster’s respect for Manning grew once they saw him push through failure
- Manning used the offseason to build chemistry with a new group of running backs and receivers including trips to New Orleans
