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Credit: imagn images, KXAN
Nobody had an offseason full of hype quite like Arch Manning did before the 2025 college football season.
The Texas quarterback was finally ready to become the full-time starter after Quinn Ewers went to the NFL. And given how highly touted he was as a prospect and the Manning family name, expectations were astronomically high. Texas was the top team in the country in the preseason poll, Manning was the Heisman favorite, and it was national championship or bust.
But not only did Arch Manning fail to live up to the hype, but he also failed to impress at all.
It started with a tepid performance against Ohio State as the Longhorns lost their season opener, with Manning barely completing 50% of his passes, and his season never really got going. Texas ended the season at 10-3 and was left out of the College Football Playoff. Arch Manning was only 6th in the SEC in passing yards and quarterback rating and 14th in the conference in completion percentage. The backlash to Manning’s season was so bad at one point that he was labeled a “failure” by The Athletic.
But Arch Manning will return to Texas this year to try to redeem himself and show why some still consider him to be the top pick in next year’s NFL Draft. He will just do so without all the hype from last summer. And judging by the comments from Archie Manning given to Noah Gross of KXAN in Austin, it’s probably better that way.
“I was kind of disappointed in a lot of people. The whole thing, they kind of crowned Arch before he ever played. And I just didn’t think that was fair. It was a little tough start, played a great team, and anyway. But I’ve never been more proud of anybody in my life as the way Arch battled through what he had to go through last year and the way he played the last eight or nine games of the season,” the elder Manning said.
It’s a fair point from Archie Manning. We hadn’t really seen anything from Arch at a sustained level, so crowning him the greatest college football player of all time before we even saw him lead a team just wasn’t sustainable. That kind of pressure would be tough for anyone to handle, let alone a first-time starter at a school that already has plenty of scrutiny like Texas. However, that spotlight has always been a factor for the younger Manning and always will be given his name and status in the game. While he doesn’t have all the attention of the football universe on him, Manning is still the co-favorite for the Heisman Trophy alongside Notre Dame’s C.J. Carr.
Regardless of what the media says or predicts, we will have a very good indication of Arch Manning’s progress when Texas hosts Ohio State on Sept. 12 in their return bout from last season.
The post Archie Manning claims media hype wasn’t fair to Arch Manning appeared first on Awful Announcing.
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