Following Texas football‘s first practice of the season, Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian had a positive report about QB1.

“I thought Arch (Manning) had a good day,” Sarkisian said Wednesday evening.

Those seven words weren’t necessarily earth-shattering. As a fourth-year quarterback, Manning is expected to have more good days than bad. But as Sarkisian noted, “I’ve seen a lot of rough quarterback days, first day of practice. The defenses have seen all these same plays all summer long. I thought he looked good.”

With the countdown underway to UT’s Sept. 5 opener against Texas State, Manning kicked off his fourth — and perhaps final — fall camp at Texas. And he had a good day. What would a good camp, though, look like for Manning?

“I think being really efficient, having a really good rapport with the receivers, the offensive line,” Sarkisian explained. “His ability to continue to take care of the football, I think, is huge for him. And then his ability to find those explosive plays that I think we want to be as an offense, and a lot of that is going to come from him.”

Manning is coming off a season in which he threw for 3,163 yards, 26 touchdowns and seven interceptions while completing 61.4% of his passes. He struggled through the first five games of 2025 but closed out the Longhorns’ 10-3 campaign with a string of strong performances.

One year later, Manning is a Heisman Trophy candidate and the unquestioned starter for a team that’s ranked No. 4 in the preseason US LBM Coaches Poll. But he also isn’t the only quarterback on the roster.

Working behind Manning in drills during a portion of Wednesday’s practice at Denius Fields that was viewed by the local media was second-year quarterback KJ Lacey, freshman Dia Bell and Coastal Carolina transfer MJ Morris. Following the practice, Sarkisian was asked how the coaching staff planned on continuing to develop Manning during the leadup to the season while also investing in its younger quarterbacks.

“That’s what we do between (quarterbacks) coach (AJ) Milwee, (assistant QBs) coach (Michael) Bimonte and myself,” Sarkisian said. “I think KJ and Dia have got bright, bright futures, and they’ve made huge strides. We pour into all those guys. It’s not just about Arch around here. We’re going to pour into those guys too.”