{"id":252081,"date":"2026-04-16T05:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T05:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252081\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T05:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T05:10:12","slug":"texas-football-qb-talks-surgery-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252081\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas football QB talks surgery, recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During his first season as the starting quarterback for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statesman.com\/hookem\/football\/\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Texas football,<\/a> Arch Manning threw for 3,163 yards and 26 touchdowns. Manning&#8217;s struggles in early-season losses to Ohio State and Florida led to nationwide criticism, but he finished the season strong as the Longhorns went 4-1 over the last two months of the season with wins over No. 9 Vanderbilt, No. 3 Texas A&amp;M and No. 18 Michigan.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-channels-pixel.ex.co\/events\/0012000001fxZm9AAE?integrationType=DEFAULT&amp;template=design%2Farticle%2Fplatypus_two_column.tpl\" alt=\"\" class=\"x1px y1px vh abs\" aria-hidden=\"true\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"MM_onlineOnly\" title=\"CCI Online Only\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.statesman.com\/sports\/college\/longhorns\/football\/article\/texas-football-steve-sarkisian-practice-facility-22203316.php\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">More: Steve Sarkisian, Texas football bid farewell to &#8216;The Bubble&#8217; as spring practice ends<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>In January, Manning had what Texas described as a minor foot surgery. That left him limited during spring drills. Steve\u00a0Sarkisian recently said\u00a0that Manning probably could have been a full participant in UT&#8217;s last few practices, but he didn&#8217;t feel like that was necessary for the fourth-year quarterback. Manning told reporters this week that &#8220;&#8221;I feel 100% right now. We&#8217;re kind of taking it slow, but if we had a game today, I&#8217;d be playing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Along with five of his teammates, Manning met with reporters on Wednesday as Texas nears the end of its spring drills. Here are 10 things that he said:<\/p>\n<p>On being limited this spring<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s been different, but it&#8217;s been good. We&#8217;ve got a good group. It&#8217;s honestly been kind of unique for me getting a bunch of mental reps and kind of being off to the side. I&#8217;ve got to spend a lot of time with these new guys \u2013 freshmen and transfers \u2013 and the guys coming back. So it&#8217;s been fun.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>On transfer receiver Cam Coleman<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s an elite player. He wants to be good, which is the most encouraging thing. He&#8217;s a hard worker, and I&#8217;m excited.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On his role in recruiting Coleman<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But it was really Ryan Wingo who went to dinner with him. I had to go to dinner with some linemen who actually ended up not coming. So really, Ryan&#8217;s a hero of that recruitment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Texas quarterback Arch Manning watches his former teammates during Texas Longhorns pro day on campus at the University of Texas, March 24, 2026.\" loading=\"lazy\"   style=\"aspect-ratio:3 \/ 4\" class=\"x100 y100 opc bgpc ofcv bgscv block bg-gray200 mnh0px fill\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Texas quarterback Arch Manning watches his former teammates during Texas Longhorns pro day on campus at the University of Texas, March 24, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Sara Diggins\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n<p>On being idle after his foot surgery<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was kind of hard on me, because I&#8217;m used to playing football. If\u00a0you&#8217;re not in football, you&#8217;re in basketball or you&#8217;re in baseball. Just always being active and not being able to run or do anything was a little bit challenging. But I think it was good rest for my body.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On if he had fun last year<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think I could have had more fun. Kind of the first half of the season, I was pissed. I wasn&#8217;t playing well, and it wasn&#8217;t fun for me. And then I kind of sort of said, &#8216;Screw it,&#8217; and had a little more fun and started winning some games.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>On what he&#8217;s seen from backups KJ Lacey and\u00a0Dia Bell<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ve been really good. KJ taking the one reps and Dia getting the two reps. They&#8217;ve done a really good job. I&#8217;ve been very impressed with them. They can make plays, they&#8217;re both hard workers, smart. So it&#8217;s been super encouraging.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On his relationship with former Texas\u00a0QB Colt McCoy<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s been great. Obviously, I have a bunch of great mentors in my life and people to look up to, but it&#8217;s always cool having a guy that played here and was in your shoes, and he&#8217;s been so open to me. I&#8217;ve been super grateful for our relationship.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning (16) and wide receiver Parker Livingstone (13) celebrate a touchdown in the second quarter as the Longhorns take on the Vanderbilt Commodores at Darrell K Royal\u2013Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Nov. 1, 2025.\" loading=\"lazy\"   style=\"aspect-ratio:3 \/ 2\" class=\"x100 y100 opc bgpc ofcv bgscv block bg-gray200 mnh0px fill\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning (16) and wide receiver Parker Livingstone (13) celebrate a touchdown in the second quarter as the Longhorns take on the Vanderbilt Commodores at Darrell K Royal\u2013Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Nov. 1, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Sara Diggins\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n<p>On Texas WR Parker Livingstone&#8217;s transfer to Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was a little surprised, but Parker&#8217;s a good guy. He&#8217;s got a good family. Obviously, we were roommates, so I wish him all the best. Can&#8217;t say I would have done the same thing, but I wish him all the best.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On new Texas DC Will Muschamp<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775031754_150_rawImage.jpg\" alt=\"image\" title=\"#\" class=\"x100\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall c-gray600\">By signing up, you agree to our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/terms\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"underlinedButton fw500 tuo1px tdu tuo2px tdc-secondary tdt-px hover:o70 td300\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Terms Of Use<\/a> and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/privacy\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"underlinedButton fw500 tuo1px tdu tuo2px tdc-secondary tdt-px hover:o70 td300\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It seems like everyone loves him. He&#8217;s got great juice. I&#8217;ve actually gone into the defensive meeting room, and he&#8217;s walked me through some stuff. He always wants to talk ball. I&#8217;m excited to have him on my team, especially (since he has ties to the) Georgia defense, we need to get through there. They&#8217;re going to be the team to beat, so it&#8217;s been fun to go against the defense during practice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>On his plans for the month of May<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m going to\u00a0try to get together with my receivers, have them down in New Orleans, eat some good food, maybe go fishing. So it&#8217;ll be fun. And then also get away. I&#8217;m\u00a0going to go on a family vacation and just enjoy the time off. That&#8217;s the only time we get off the whole year. So it&#8217;s not like the NFL where you get a whole offseason, it&#8217;s really just one month. I will get away a little bit, but I want to get with these guys because I didn&#8217;t do much this spring.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During his first season as the starting quarterback for Texas football, Arch Manning threw for 3,163 yards and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3230,261,66615,27,29,537,536,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-252081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-arch-manning","9":"tag-college-football","10":"tag-dallas-sharing","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-texas-headlines","13":"tag-texas-longhorns","14":"tag-texas-longhorns-football","15":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}