Arch Manning can quiet ‘flop’ talk with upset win over Oklahoma

The media overhyped Texas quarterback Arch Manning ahead of the 2025 season, and now the media is tearing him down. To be fair, the redshirt sophomore has struggled for much of this campaign, but so has the Longhorns program as a whole.

On Tuesday, in a piece for The Athletic, Will Leitch wrote in part, “Arch Manning, so far, is a flop.” That seems overly harsh and at least a little unfair.

Arch Manning has an opportunity to change the narrative

The annual Red River Rivalry game, which began in 1900, is coming up. It’s an opportunity for Manning to show the college football world that he’s a quality quarterback. This Saturday afternoon, No. 6 Oklahoma (5-0) will travel to Austin to face the Longhorns (3-2), a team that resided at No. 1 in the preseason AP Top-25 poll but dropped out of the poll altogether after a Week 6 road loss to Florida, 29-21.

For as bad as this season has been for Texas to date, the Longhorns have two losses. They were both on the road by a combined 15 points to a desperate Gators squad and to Ohio State, which is the No. 1 team in the country.

Plus, Manning’s subpar play isn’t the only reason that the Longhorns are 3-2 and need to rattle off a ton of wins in the remainder of the regular season to have any shot at making the 12-team College Football Playoff. Other members of the Texas offense have struggled, too, and the program has had to deal with some injuries.

Calling Arch Manning a “flop” is a bit over the top

The 6-foot-4, 219-pound Manning, who hails from New Orleans, is completing 60 percent of his passes for 1,151 yards with 11 touchdowns and five interceptions. He’s also rushed for 160 yards and five more scores on the ground.

Those aren’t mind-boggling numbers, but they’re not awful, either. The challenge for Manning is that he comes from a famous football family. Ahead of 2025, he was named by the media as a preseason All-American, a Heisman Trophy favorite and a potential No. 1 overall pick in next year’s NFL Draft despite this campaign being his first as a full-time starter.

The Sooners’ Heisman Trophy candidate, redshirt junior quarterback John Mateer, is trying to return for the game at Texas after having surgery to address a right-hand injury in September.

Manning hasn’t lived up to the preseason hype — yet. He’s also not a flop. If he can outperform Mateer and give Oklahoma its first loss on Saturday, that would be massive for Manning’s confidence and give Texas a little momentum heading into the second half of the regular season.