Arch Manning got a chance to prove himself during Saturday night’s loss to the Georgia Bulldogs, but it sounds like he didn’t do enough to show that he should be the team’s full-time starting quarterback.
During the second quarter of Saturday’s loss to Georgia, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian decided to insert Arch Manning into the game in place of starting quarterback Quinn Ewers, who was struggling in the game. But Manning did not necessarily perform much better.
Manning played two drives before halftime in which he completed 3-of-6 passing attempts for just 19 yards. He also had a total of -1 yards on the ground.
After halftime, Texas decided to go back to Ewers as the starter, and Steve Sarkisian made it pretty clear to Manning after the game that he would remain the backup.
“Quinn’s our starting quarterback,” Sarkisian said according to ESPN. “I appreciate the fact that we’re fortunate enough to have a backup like Arch that can come into the game and provide a spark in some sense, but at the end of the day, Quinn’s our starter.”
Sarkisian said that he went with Manning over Ewers in the second quarterback because his “eyes weren’t where they needed to be.” Sarkisian thought that Ewers needed a little bit of a break to calm down.
Still, Sarkisian sees Ewers – not Manning – as the team’s starting quarterback moving forward.
Even though Sarkisian acknowledged that Ewers did struggle during the game, he made it clear that he thinks there are other areas where the team needs to improve to help out the quarterback.
“Quinn’s our starter, but I think we’ve got to do a better job around him,” Sarkisian said. “I think he would tell you he can play better, but we’ve got to coach better. Everybody’s got to be better for our offensive football team to perform better.”
We’ll have to see how the team is able to bounce back from this loss.
[ESPN]
About Kevin Harrish