Well, Manning stopped short of telling reporters this weekend where he is going to vacation with his family during the month of May. That’s probably a wise choice for one of the most well-known faces in college football. But Manning will take some time off next month since the Longhorns don’t have a lot of downtime on their calendar.
In college football, the end of a season almost immediately leads into winter workouts, which set up spring practices. Texas expects its players back on campus in June for summer conditioning, and that sets the Longhorns up for their fall camp in August. Texas will open its season up Sept. 5 against Texas State, and the Longhorns hope to be playing into next year since college football’s champion won’t be crowned until Jan. 25.
“That’s the only time we get off the whole year,” Manning said. “It’s not like the NFL where you get a whole offseason. That’s really just one month.”
It won’t just be about fun and games next month, though. Since he was limited this spring as worked his way back from an offseason foot surgery, Manning still has a rapport to build with a new-look receiving corps that has added Auburn transfer Cam Coleman, Wake Forest transplant Sterling Berkhalter and freshmen Jermaine Bishop Jr., Kohen Brown and Chris Stewart.
“I want to have a big month of May with my receivers,” Manning said. “I’m going to try to get together with my receivers, have them down in New Orleans, eat some good food, maybe go fishing. … I will get away a little bit, but I want to get with these guys because I didn’t do much this spring.”
The addition of UT’s new receivers as well as the arrivals of running backs Hollywood Smothers and Raleek Brown from North Carolina State and Arizona State has Texas thinking that its offense can be more explosive this fall. According to cfbstats.com, Texas ranked 51st nationally with its 59 20-yards plays last season. Thirty-one Football Bowl Subdivision-level teams had more 40-yard plays than Texas, which had 13 of its 421 passing plays and just three of its 427 rushes cover that much ground.
“I feel like we’ve got a lot of guys that can score from far away,” Manning said.
But is Texas right to feel this optimistic about its big-play ability after a spring in which Manning was limited as backup quarterbacks KJ Lacey and Dia Bell shared significant snaps? Texas coach Steve Sarkisian seemed to think so.
“Well, (Arch is) out there. He just doesn’t do the full-team stuff,” Sarkisian said. “He (recently) threw some beautiful passes when we were going good-on-good, seven-on-seven. It was like, wow. Coach Gideon actually joked, ‘I thought that guy’s supposed to be out. He’s in a green jersey.’ I’m seeing progress in Arch too, and so it’s really encouraging to see him trusting these wideouts and them making plays with him and for him.
“On the flip side, these young guys playing quarterback, KJ, Dia, MJ (Morris), it’s helpful to see scheme, not necessarily just the physical ability of the quarterback. We’re getting enough information right now. We’re doing good.”