{"id":63405,"date":"2025-11-24T21:51:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T21:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/63405\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T21:51:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T21:51:08","slug":"texas-qb-would-get-heisman-vote-from-michael-taaffe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/63405\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas QB would get Heisman vote from Michael Taaffe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas football<\/a> has faced some of the best players in the country this season.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t believe it? Just try and place a friendly wager on the winner of this season\u2019s Heisman Trophy, and you\u2019ll find plenty of faces familiar to the Longhorns. Texas A&M quarterback Marcel Reed is currently ranked No. 5 on BetMGM\u2019s list of likely winners, and he\u2019ll become the fourth player currently ranked in the top six to face Texas this season Friday when the\u00a0No. 3 Aggies<\/a> visit Austin \\for the regular-season finale against No. 16 Texas.<\/p>\n

So, who would get a Heisman vote from Texas all-American safety Michael Taaffe, who\u2019s faced Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin (No. 2 on Bet MGM\u2019s odds list), Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia (No. 4) and Georgia quarterback Gunnar Stockton (No. 6)?<\/p>\n

The answer during Monday\u2019s press conference inside Royal-Memorial Stadium drew chuckles from the gathered media, but Taaffe wasn\u2019t kidding around.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bet his numbers are probably up there,\u201d Taaffe said. \u201cI think he’s the most hated-on person in all of college football, and he doesn’t even care. He just cares about winning, and he cares about his teammates. The things that he’s done for this team and the adversity that he’s gone through, I think if you look at the best player in college football, I think it’s Arch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taaffe\u2019s statistical assertion isn\u2019t far off, especially since Manning began heating up<\/a> midseason. Starting four games ago against Mississippi State, Manning has averaged 328.5 yards per game with 11 touchdowns and two interceptions on 65.1% passing. Despite a slow start to the season, he\u2019s thrown for 2,763 yards and 23 touchdowns. Those numbers are sixth and fifth, respectively, among quarterbacks on ranked teams from a Power Four conference.<\/p>\n

When told about Taaffe\u2019s praise, Manning grinned and gave a slight shake of his head.<\/p>\n

But did Manning feel like \u201cthe most hated-on player\u201d in the nation \u2014 especially after an ill-timed article by The Athletic\u2019s Will Leitch in mid-October asked whether the redshirt sophomore was college football\u2019s \u201cfirst flop”?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I’m liked by my team,\u201d Manning deadpanned, drawing more laughs.<\/p>\n

But Manning also said that his ability to block out any outside criticism has helped his late-season surge.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI don’t pay attention all the other stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cReally, all I care about are my teammates, family and friends. Other than that, I’m not real interested.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, would Manning join Taaffe and vote for himself, if he had a Heisman vote?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I was playing like garbage (early),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas football has faced some of the best players in the country this season. Don\u2019t believe it? Just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3230,132,134,133,21081,16770,537,536],"class_list":["post-63405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-arch-manning","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-heisman-trophy","tag-texas-a-m-aggies-basketball","tag-texas-longhorns","tag-texas-longhorns-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63405","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=63405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}