College football has always been a sport where student-athletes learn the nitty-gritty of the sport and prove themselves week in week out, all with the goal to go pro one day. But the latter part of this equation (proving themselves) has been so overblown in this era that fans are not giving players the breathing room that is required to make mistakes and learn from them. Arch Manning is the best example of this phenomenon. In the span of just four games, he endured a choppy start, was booed by his home crowd, and was hated all over social media. His fault? He could not live up to the hype that the fans and analysts created around him.
All of us know that his heavyweight surname will lead his every move to be scrutinized under a microscope. But we did not expect the hatred to be so blown out of proportion that a student athlete was expected to perform like a pro every time his hand touches the ball. Recently, Texas HC Steve Sarkisian came out and shed some light on this situation. “Yeah, I mean, I’m gonna go on a little soapbox here,” Sarkisian began, pivoting from a question about developing young quarterbacks to the culture around them. “We’re in this era right now of everybody’s got a phone, so everybody’s got Twitter. There’s nine thousand podcasts going on. The coverage of college football is more and more intense than it’s ever been… players are getting put up on these pedestals really quickly in their careers,” he said.
Sarkisian took all the blame for Arch Manning’s performance on himself, saying he should be the one to protect him. “College football players are getting critiqued and criticized more now than they ever have in the past two, and so this is a different era that we’re in. And I think that we’ve got to do a great job as coaches of I don’t want to say shelter, but we got to protect our guys, and because they’re not pros yet,” Sarkisian said.
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Arch Manning was a first-time starter in an unforgiving SEC world, who was trying to learn the timings and the protection, but the discourse around him had already reached the NFL. Analysts were predicting when he’d declare for the draft. Finebaum called him the best player to ever come into college football after Tim Tebow. All of this hype was not his fault, but when he tried to live up to it and made some mistakes, he was torn down faster than he was built up.
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He also talked about the machinery of NIL behind all this, which is just as unforgiving, if not more, than the fans. He said, “They feel like they have to live up to whether it’s whatever they’re allegedly making through NIL or because this is what the media [is] saying I’m supposed to be.” That line lands much differently with Arch Manning because, unlike other up-and-coming QBs, he also has to carry the weight of that surname on his back. So, it’s about justifying his NIL and then going a step ahead and justifying his last name, all while being a 21-year-old.
But in Sarkisian’s mind, the answer is now clear as day. It’s to protect the QB and make them remember why they started playing football. He said, “I think that they got to play for the love of the game because they do love the game, they need to play football, and not work football. And I think that that’s something we’ve been working on with Arch.” If your work feels like play to you, you’ll always win no matter what. But to these young players, playing is the beginning of feeling like work. And that’s where all the pressure kicks in. Sarkisian’s model towards this is extremely effective. Arch must do it for the love of the game, not because a couple of analysts decided he’s a once-in-a-millennium player.
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Arch Manning: Stepping away to reset
Manning’s brief time off from football arrived exactly when he needed it the most. It was when the noise and the off-field expectations came throbbing into his ears at full volume. A recent glimpse from his younger brother Heid’s social media post showed Arch spending a low-key night with his friends at Ranch 616. After a 309-yard, 3 3-touchdown rebound against Sam Houston, that was exactly something Arch needed to decompress and let the confidence from the win settle in.
This is exactly what Steve Sarkisian meant when he said the quarterbacks should “play football, not work football.” It meant they should be living their lives because, after all, they are still barely an adult. These outings are important to insulate players from the echo chambers and hype circles of social media. Can this reset translate into sustained form? Maybe. This could be exactly the week that Arch needs to fight the already wounded Gators and get himself into a stable identity. The bounce back against Sam Houston could very well become the baseline this week.