It’s no secret that Arch Manning may be the most talked about quarterback in college football this season. And, he may not even start for the Texas Longhorns in 2023.
But Steve Sarkisian wants people to recognize that Manning is still a college kid — a freshman at that — and it would be premature to hold him to the same candle as his Uncles. At the same time, even though he’s already lost his college ID, not once, but twice, it’s easy to tell that he’s cut from the same cloth as Peyton and Eli.
“But what he does have, that I think is somewhere in the Manning DNA, this guy loves football,” Sarkisian said during a recent appearance on The Pivot Podcast. “He works at football. We practice in the morning, that evening he wants to already be up here watching every one of his plays. He works at his craft. He wants to be great. There’s no doubt about it. And I think that’s why he came here.”
Another reason why Sarkisian believes that Manning came to Texas is his track record for developing quarterbacks at the collegiate level like Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart, Matt Cassel and Jake Locker, to name a few.
“I think their family handled recruiting really well,” Sarkisian said. “He’s got two great parents. I will say this, I never talked to Peyton or Eli one time. As much as people think they’re involved in this whole thing, I didn’t talk to them. Their family went through the recruiting process…ultimately Arch said that’s where I want to go to school.”
It remains to be seen how the quarterback battle between Manning and Quinn Ewers will shake out. What’s clear at the moment, though, is how much of an impact Manning has already made on his teammates and coaches in such a short amount of time.
