Occasionally, a game leads people to question senior quarterback Arch Manning and his inconsistencies at the center of Texas\u2019 offense.<\/p>\n
Many people will blame him for the loss against Oklahoma Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n
And with valid reasoning, too: he threw two devastating interceptions in the fourth quarter, one that ended in a pick-six and an Oklahoma lead, the other that set up the Sooners\u2019 walk-off field goal.<\/p>\n
Now Texas sits 4\u20131 ahead of a lengthy stretch of games, and Manning and the offense have a lot more questions surrounding them than answers.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake: Manning has shown flashes of being the quarterback that the program needs him to be. He can scramble, he\u2019s got a good arm and is able to capitalize on opportunities downfield. He made a couple explosive shots against the Sooners and played maybe his best 10 minutes of football in the fourth quarter against Ohio State.<\/p>\n
The struggle has been turning those moments into sustained production through 60 minutes. Cracks in the offense began to show all the way back in week one and are catching up to the Longhorns.<\/p>\n
Manning was expected to reach another level of growth and maturity with it being his second year as a starter, especially because the program has spared no expense in putting elite weapons around him.<\/p>\n
Any Texas quarterback is going to be held to an extremely high standard and is bound to be scrutinized week after week, and the name on his back only adds to that pressure. It was not long ago that fans were calling for former Longhorn Quinn Ewers to be benched for Manning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if you took the name off the back of (Manning\u2019s) jersey and you said, \u2018Here\u2019s Joe Smith playing quarterback at the University of Texas, and here\u2019s a guy who\u2019s beaten four top-10-ranked teams in his last 13 starts,\u2019 we\u2019d be praising the guy,\u201d head coach Steve Sarkisian said. \u201cBut the expectations are high for him. But he understands that the expectations are high for all of us, so we got to put our nose back to the grind and get back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless of the pressure, things are not clicking. Manning has taken unnecessary sacks, missed routine throws and turned the ball over in critical moments. Because he stalls in the pocket and holds the ball too long, he makes panic throws under pressure from the pass rush. He also needs improvement in reading the field.<\/p>\n
Through five games, Manning has thrown for 1,122 yards with 10 touchdowns and five interceptions. He sits 48th nationally in completion percentage at 63%.<\/p>\n
Texas\u2019 offensive woes can\u2019t be blamed entirely on Manning. Sarkisian\u2019s play calling is clearly not conducive to Manning\u2019s strengths and is not making needed adjustments. The offensive line needs better pass protection, and the run game hasn\u2019t been as efficient.<\/p>\n
But no one can deny that he\u2019s produced a lot of uneven performances that have added to Texas\u2019s struggle. Ultimately, the coaches call the plays and the players execute them. Manning has to trust himself and turn the page quickly. At some point, it stops being about his potential and becomes about reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not fun when (adversity is) happening, but there\u2019s only one way you can respond,\u201d Manning said. \u201cYou can let it linger and let it affect the next week, or you can bounce back. So we got one choice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Occasionally, a game leads people to question senior quarterback Arch Manning and his inconsistencies at the center of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-465352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465352","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=465352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}