Arch Manning, Texas happy offseason expectations circus is over

The Herald Scotland

19 hours ago

The next thing you know, grandpa has the next two years of your life mapped out, and he's using the Texas Monthly magazine bullhorn so the planet knows it.
It's bad enough that Arch has to deal with expectations of (in this order) an unbeaten season, an SEC championship, a Heisman Trophy, a national title, and the first pick in the NFL draft -- or bust.
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It's bad enough that one uncle is an NFL Hall of Fame quarterback, and another uncle is on his way to Canton. And that's all Arch has to live up to.
It's worse that grandpa, of all people - Archie Manning, the first true college football megastar of decades gone by and a fantastic NFL star who played on some truly lousy New Orleans Saints teams - joined Team Expectation and Speculation in July to declare Arch will spend two more years at Texas before leaving for the NFL. Book it.
Only there's one teeny-weeny problem: Arch is only worried about the here and now.
"I don't know where he got that from," Manning said Monday, in his first meeting with the media since last month's SEC media days. "He texted me to apologize about that."
Let me be the first to apologize to Arch for all of this nonsense. For the hype and the hyperbole, for Las Vegas and the Heisman odds, for failure is not an option, for putting the horse before winning a road game as an SEC starting quarterback.
You know, that used to be a big deal.
To be fair to Manning, he doesn't want this circus. He said in July that he doesn't deserve any of it.
He can't control what a talk radio host in Miami says anymore than a television bobblehead in Los Angeles. He knows Finebaum is chumming the waters, and the SEC Network is looking for the next soundbite, and everyone - I mean, everyone - is just waiting for him to fail.
Because that's what we've become in this twisted wash machine of gotta have it, gotta get it. Build 'em up, tear 'em down.
He just probably never expected grandpa to join the party.
No one needs the season to begin quicker than Manning, whose first test out of the gate next week is on the road against defending national champion Ohio State. And that may as well be a welcome respite from this offseason of buffoonery.
Let's not forget that Arch purposely avoided any connection to the past when, as the nation's No.1 quarterback recruit, he chose a different college path. Avoid the spotlight, embrace the normal.
Didn't go to Ole Miss (where Archie and uncle Eli Manning played) or Tennessee (Peyton Manning), and didn't choose Alabama or Georgia and their recent history of college football domination.
Manning chose the one school where he'd blend in like any other student on an urban campus, and where he could lift a program back to championship glory. Texas hasn't won a national title since Mack Brown's team shocked Southern California in 2005.
That's 20 long years for the hardcore Burnt Orange, two excruciatingly painful decades of underachieving ugly. Texas has changed everything - coaches, athletic directors, presidents, conferences - in those 20 years, and nothing has worked.
Now it has a genuine difference-maker at quarterback for the first time since Colt McCoy got the Longhorns back to the national title game in 2009, but was knocked out of the game on the first drive. That eventual loss to Alabama still haunts Brown, who swears Texas had the better team and the perfect game plan to beat the Tide.
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Now here we are in 2025, and the entire college football world hangs on all things Arch. We can't get enough of it.
Some because of tantalizing thoughts of what could be with all of that talent, and others just waiting for him to throw two picks in a loss to Ohio State. Because I told you so is such an attractive look.
Here's a novel idea: just let the kid play.
Forget about his bloated NIL deals, or his famous last name or that he has started all of two games in two seasons at Texas. If he goes out and beats Ohio State, don't start screaming about multiple Heismans or the first pick in the NFL draft.
Stay in the moment and enjoy the ride.
Even if Texas gets on a roll, and there's no one stopping the train. Even if Arch looks like all the best parts of Archie, Peyton and Eli.
Even if Nick Saban admits at some point this season - during one of ESPN's many GameDay shows featuring Texas - that he'd have stayed at Alabama if he could've signed Arch.
Grandpa has already done enough damage.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.