When He Needed It Most, Arch Got His Win
Getty Images, Associated Press
Following the game-winning kick against Ohio State on Saturday, Arch Manning not only cemented a career-defining performance. He provided an encapsulation of his career to this point.
In the first half, a combination of once-in-a-season level offensive mistakes-from fumbles on peanut punches to dropped passes turning into interceptions made Texas look like the same team that lost to Ohio State last season. However, a second half led by Arch Manning heroics and an offense that didn’t make game-losing mistakes one drive after another brought Texas all the way back from down 17 at halftime.
Though it was a great win for a Texas team that has needed a win like this, this win is even more important for the newest Manning quarterback. But for Manning, this win means so much more. This win finally gives him something only a few of his counterparts have achieved: a career moment
A Perfect Encapsulation
In this win against Ohio State, Texas finally got over the Ohio-sized monkey on their back that’s been there for two straight seasons. For Arch, though, this game was a four-hour showcase of his career and story up to this point. The parallels to the first half of this exact game last year were obvious. The difference this time was that the skill group was letting Arch down, and not the other way around.
But throughout the second half of this game, we saw a similar comparison to the end of last season for Arch. After that Ohio State loss in their first game last year, Arch, following Texas’ comeback against Mississippi State, became one of the best quarterbacks in all of college football, ending his season with a convincing bowl game win against Michigan.
In this game, a first half full of mistakes turned into a half-sample size of what Arch has been doing since that Mississippi State win. One play that stands out the most to show that was a late-game fourth-and-long conversion in the third quarter. If not converted, that decision by Steve Sarkisian would’ve been put on a lowlights YouTube video within minutes, but Arch’s poise and finding the tight end Emaree Winston added even more to Texas’ momentum throughout the second half.
Though it was only a few plays that won Texas the game outright, the entire second half was a dominant showing by the Texas offense and felt like the true coming-out of Arch as a real option for teams looking for their quarterback of the future.
Was This Just A Great Moment?
While this Ohio State game was a great coming-out party for Arch, proving why he was generating Heisman buzz before he even became a full-time starter, the question becomes whether this game was a showing of sustained success or just a blip.
A perfect example of this question is with former UCLA quarterback and now well-known draft bust Josh Rosen. His career-defining performance, and the likely reason he even touched the top 10 in the draft, was his performance in a 34-point comeback against Texas A&M. Though the win is one of the most iconic moments in college football, as a whole for Rosen and the Cardinals who drafted him, it did more harm than good. Rosen’s comeback shows the downside of this career-defining moment, when that moment becomes bigger than the quarterback themself.
Without knowing the long-term success of Arch past the college level, this win feels less like a blip and more like the biggest example of what he’s been doing since late last season. One of the things that has stood out the most in his most recent games is his patience on his throws. In his last game against Ohio State, though, what we later learned to be one of the best defensive rosters we’ve seen on a college football team made Arch look like his internal clock was at breakneck speed. This game, while not facing the war chest of elite defensive players as in last year’s matchup, Arch looked calm and even in the first half; outside of some overthrown ball showed a calm presence in the pocket.
That calming force under pressure is the type of leadership needed in comeback wins like this, and unlike Rosen’s win, without the benefit of hindsight, it is a real showcase of Arch’s continued growth over the past 10 months.