AUSTIN - Arch Manning didn’t sugarcoat it after Texas finished off UTSA.
“Got to play better.”
That was the quarterback’s postgame verdict, and it fit the night. Manning went 16-of-32 for 161 yards and two touchdowns in the non-conference finale, a stat line that reflected the same uneven feel Texas has been getting from its passing game for weeks now.
The Longhorns have not hit a passing groove, and the problems are showing up in the same places over and over: accuracy, processing and an offense that keeps running into hard limits. Even after Manning helped engineer the comeback against Ohio State, the downfield game still hasn’t looked close to what Texas imagined in the preseason. Over the last two-plus games, Texas has not completed a pass longer than 24 yards, and Manning has thrown 75 passes since the season opener.
That’s a long way from the version of Manning that flashed as a redshirt freshman, when his best passing trait was his ability to push the ball deep. He went 8-of-19 on those throws for 327 yards and four touchdowns.
But defenses are adjusting, and Steve Sarkisian said they’re doing it by taking away the explosives.
“I think the natural thing is, try not to give up explosives when you play us, so I think that we have to continually try to find those intermediate throws,” Sarkisian said.
That puts a premium on the few deep chances Texas does create, especially for junior Cam Coleman, the marquee receiver addition this offseason. Those opportunities were there against Ohio State and UTSA, but they didn’t consistently land.
Against Ohio State, Coleman had a shot at a 62-yard touchdown before he couldn’t keep his feet, and the play ended as a fluke interception after Manning didn’t keep the throw flat enough on Coleman’s post route.
Against UTSA, Coleman was lined up in the slot in 12 personnel and found himself in one-on-one coverage after the single deep safety reacted to play-action. Coleman separated on his post route, but Manning took a hit from a free blitzer as he released the ball and the pass sailed 10 yards wide.
It was one of only three throws of 20-plus yards in the game, and it was the only one where the receiver clearly created separation.
Coleman’s night also included a tougher matchup with UTSA cornerback Asaad Chapman, a 6-foot-3, 200-pound JUCO transfer who handled him physically in press coverage. Another missed chance for Coleman came when senior running back Hollywood Smothers failed to pick up a blitz, sliding to his right instead of finding the free defender coming from the left.
Manning did connect on a few of the shorter, more manageable throws. He hit Coleman for a 24-yard touchdown early on a double move that beat zone coverage, and Sarkisian liked what he saw from the bubble screen game. Manning completed all six of his passes behind the line of scrimmage for 40 yards, a 6.7-yard average that wasn’t explosive, but did function as a useful extension of the run game.
There’s also been real improvement there compared with Quinn Ewers, particularly in putting those throws where receivers can work after the catch.
Still, the clearest dividing line in Manning’s night came before and after a hard collision on a scramble late in the first half that knocked his helmet off. Manning said after the game that the hit didn’t affect him physically, but the numbers tell a different story. After that point, he finished 5-of-16 for 45 yards, including four straight incompletions to close the half and a 2-of-11 stretch before a pair of checkdowns led to his final completion, a seven-yard throw to freshman wide receiver Jermaine Bishop late in the third quarter.
“I feel like Arch kind of fell in love with his legs a little bit tonight,” Sarkisian said.
Manning scrambled eight times for 53 yards on dropbacks, and Sarkisian did not call a designed run for him. That’s not the plan Texas wants to live with.
“What happens when you go to run? You can start speeding up through your progressions and I think that we don’t want to make a living with him running the ball as much as he ran tonight. We want him to use his legs when he can, but ideally we’re in rhythm in the passing game when the ball’s coming out and we’re calling things where he can get completions and he’s throwing it accurately and guys are making plays and catching the ball, and then his legs can be the last resort, the weapon to get us out,” Sarkisian said.
Even on the scramble that led to the big hit, Manning’s decision-making came under scrutiny. It came on second-and-1, after he had already gained seven yards before absorbing contact from multiple defenders.
“We can’t survive all season long with him doing that. We’ve got to be more efficient in the passing game.
He does. We do from a game-plan standpoint, the receivers do, everybody’s got to do their part.
We’ve got to be more efficient when we call pass plays,” Sarkisian said.
“I thought we missed some opportunities in the pass game tonight that could have made it really all tie together.”
Some of those misses were plain old bad throws. Manning missed Emmett Mosley V on a fourth-and-5 when the junior receiver had to push his route deeper and still couldn’t haul in the ball at its high point. He also overshot Mosley on a fourth-and-4, sending the pass several yards out of bounds.
Then there’s the other stuff that has started to pile up: back-to-back weeks of Manning stepping up in the pocket and trying dangerous shovel passes in traffic. That kind of decision-making is going to matter even more with the SEC opener at Knoxville next, where Texas will face a better defense and a much tougher road environment.
And given how rough Manning was in conference road games last season, the margin for error is getting thin. The accuracy and processing issues are still hanging over the offense, and for now they’re outweighing the good moments.
“Hopefully he can get himself refocused, ready to go for a big week to start SEC play,” Sarkisian said.
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What has stood out since then is how much more guarded Manning has sounded in his recent media appearances, sticking almost entirely to football topics and giving short answers ahead of the Tennessee trip. Fans have noticed the shift and have already split over what it means, with some seeing a young quarterback learning how to handle the pressure and others wondering whether the controversy has changed the way he is being received. For a player who is always under a microscope, the next public turn may matter almost as much as the next snap. [Read more 🡒]