Jeff Howe

BTW, this makes TWO Williamson County boys who will suit up for Texas! To that, I say:

Well, in his defense, "bust and huge disappointment" are things Aggies know very well.

I like him as a prospect. He's a good athlete who can cross-train at multiple positions.

Even with a prospect as good as Arch, you never know what you've got in a quarterback until they step across the chalked line and the bullets are live. Trevor Lawrence comes to mind, who succeeded right out of the gate, but he walked into an insanely talented Clemson team. Colt was great as a redshirt freshman when he stepped in for Vince, but some forget how much he struggled in 2007 when the offensive line went through a transition and Limas Sweed was injured most of the year. Arch's rise has coincided with Emmett Mosley and DeAndre Moore getting healthy.

That's the plan. Again, I'm sorry for cluttering the thread.

I apologize for my part in derailing the thread. Let's get back to discussing Arch, or anything else for that matter.

Good deal. I'm not sure what your endgame is here, but go on, I guess.

That's great. You do you. My colleagues do great work.

Nobody is forcing you to read it.

It feels like Texas is the team that needs to be all-in after coming up short. Hope it goes more like it did for Ohio State last season and not Penn State this season. It's up to Sark to push the right buttons.

Yet you felt the need to comment. Cool.

FWIW, Arch is 10-3 as a starter. That's the same record Colt McCoy had after 13 starts and he's one game behind Vince Young (11-2) in win-loss record through 13 starts. He's also 7-0 at home and has an 8-0 record in games played inside the state of Texas.

AUSTIN, Texas — Arch Manning will lead Texas into the 2025 regular-season finale against Texas A&M on Friday (6:30 p.m., ABC), looking to extend the best stretch of football he’s played in his first full season as QB1 for the Longhorns. The career-high 389 yards Manning threw for and six touchdowns he accounted for (he and Bobby Layne as the only quarterbacks in school history to throw for, rush for and catch a touchdown in a single game) in Saturday’s 52-37 win over Arkansas earned him a Manning Award Star of the Week nod, a spot on the Davey O’Brien Award’s “Great 8” list and recognition as the Associated Press National Player of the Week. Manning’s historic afternoon made him the first Texas (8-3, 5-2 SEC) quarterback to record three 300-yard passing games in a four-game stretch since Colt McCoy in 2009, one in which Manning (against Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Georgia and Arkansas) has accounted for 14 touchdowns (11 passing, two rushing and one receiving). Doing his part to keep the Longhorns in the hunt for a third consecutive berth in the College Football Playoff over the team’s last four games, Manning is completing 65.1 percent of his passes (99 for 152). He's thrown for 1,314 yards and just two interceptions heading into Friday’s showdown with the Aggies at Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. The game has slowed down for Manning and, as a result, he’s thriving, Steve Sarkisian said on Monday. While praising Manning’s continued growth as a progression passer and decision maker, Sarkisian said that how the redshirt sophomore quarterback overcame his early-season struggles has led to Manning’s play becoming, arguably, the biggest strength of a Texas team standing between Texas A&M (11-0, 7-0) and its first-ever trip to the SEC title game. “I don't know if any college player has gone through what he went through before he even was the full-time starter,” Sarkisian said. “Part of that is his last name, part of it is our brand. I think those two things coming together made this such a big storyline before the season, but none of it was anything due to what Arch was doing. He just kept focusing on what he needed and tried to do. I'm sure there were moments when it was a lot — maybe, even overwhelming — but, to his credit, the guy showed so much resolve and resiliency and stick-to-itiveness to the task at hand. It wasn't a perfect journey to get to this point, but sometimes, it's good not to have a perfect journey. Sometimes, taking a road less traveled is good for you. "I said this earlier in the year — he was going to benefit from the journey that he had to go on and that he could learn how to overcome some of the adversity that he was faced with and some of the criticism he was faced with," he added. "I think he's better and stronger for it today and I'm really proud of him.” View full news story

His last three years at UCLA (8-4, 9-4, 8-5) went a lot better than I thought.