Arch Manning faces immense expectations as Texas’ starting quarterback, fueled by his family legacy and the team’s No. 1 ranking.
Despite limited starting experience, Manning is considered a Heisman Trophy front-runner, a testament to the Manning name.
Unlike his grandfather and uncles, Manning enters a program with sky-high expectations and a roster primed for immediate success.
There’s this old Sylvia Plath quote that says if you expect nothing from anybody, you are never disappointed.
If the inverse of that is true, if you expect everything from somebody, you’re sure to be disappointed.
And that brings us to the incomparable proposition for Arch Manning. The bar for this 21-year-old quarterback with two career starts to his name (neither start occurred against a competent team) has been set so impossibly high, he’d need to be Superman in a football uniform to meet the hopelessly high expectations.
Or, alternatively, just be a Manning. That’d probably work, too.
Therein lies the rub. If this quarterback possessed any other surname, we’d all find it more than a tad ridiculous that the preseason Heisman Trophy front-runner has thrown all of 95 passes in his career, and more than a tad hyperbolic when prominent ESPN commentator Paul Finebaum dubbed Manning the greatest thing since Tim Tebow.
But those seven letters stitched across the back of his burnt orange jersey signify that this Texas quarterback is the latest in the line of the first family of college football.
And, so, we wonder: Maybe, the bar isn’t hopelessly high. Maybe, the expectations are reasonable. His grandfather became a Southern icon, and his uncles cemented the family’s legacy as football royalty.
He’s a Manning. That gives him a chance.
Arch Manning has pedigree to meet expectations
Manning’s coach, Steve Sarkisian, told reporters that he said this to his quarterback: We are not asking any superhuman efforts of you to do anything that is extraordinary.
Who is ‘we’ in that sentence? Because, there are plenty who do expect the extraordinary from this former five-star recruit who will start for the nation’s No. 1-ranked team when Texas plays Saturday at No. 2 Ohio State, the defending national champions.
‘This is what I’ve been waiting for,’ Manning told reporters this week. ‘I spent two years not playing (as a backup behind Quinn Ewers), so I might as well go have some fun.’
Might as well accept that he’s facing expectations that supersede even those for the Mannings who came before him.
Texas, despite losing twice to Georgia last season, and after falling in the College Football Playoff semifinals for the second straight year, and despite losing 12 players to the NFL Draft, was ranked preseason No. 1 in the US LBM Coaches Poll for the first time ever.
Which means that, for Manning to meet expectations, he’d have to win the Heisman and deliver to Texas its first national championship since the 2005 season.
Manning does not come off as one to seek fanfare. He chose to play his college ball in a metropolis of nearly a million people, inside a city that prides itself on being weird and where he might stand a chance of blending in, something he’d have had no hope of doing in Oxford, Mississippi, or Tuscaloosa, Alabama, or Athens, Georgia.
But, then, when you’re Arch Manning, what hope do you really have of blending in? When Manning went on a Walmart run this summer in Thibodaux, Louisiana, with LSU’s talented quarterback, Garrett Nussmeier, while they roomed together at the Manning Passing Academy, shoppers recognized Arch and wanted photos with him. LSU’s starting quarterback faded into the background, apparently undetected.
There’s starting quarterback fame, and then there’s Manning fame. The latter is on another level.
Arch Manning faces unique pressure compared to relatives
If Manning needs advice, he can call his grandpa Archie or uncles Peyton or Eli. Each won SEC offensive player of the year accolades. They navigated fanfare and ascended to the moment.
None of those three Mannings, though, could speak to facing demands on par to these, in their first seasons as starter.
Mississippi was unranked in the 1968 preseason ahead of Archie Manning’s first season starting, his sophomore season. Ole Miss had gone 10-0 in 1962, but, by 1968, the Rebels were on the backslope from the summit of the John Vaught era. Archie Manning rekindled some good times, especially during a special 1969 season that culminated in a Sugar Bowl triumph.
Uncle Peyton was a coveted recruit, with the notebook to prove it. He kept meticulous records of the coaches who called him during his recruitment. One Sunday before his senior season of high school, his records show he fielded calls from 23 coaches, from Steve Spurrier to Phillip Fulmer. He chose Tennessee.
In 1994, he was supposed to be third string. Tennessee had big expectations, but not No. 1 expectations. Injuries to Todd Helton and Jerry Colquitt forced Manning into the starting role. The Vols nursed a 1-3 record at the time of his first start. The season had become a lost cause, until Manning became the savior and rallied Tennessee to an 8-4 finish.
Eli Manning became Ole Miss’ starter as a redshirt sophomore, mirroring the timeline his nephew is on at Texas. Just as when Archie Manning became the Rebels’ starter, Ole Miss was not ranked in the preseason when Eli took the reins.
Arch’s dad, Cooper, was set to play wide receiver at Ole Miss before a spinal stenosis diagnosis halted his career.
Texas hoping Arch Manning can deliver title
Archie, Peyton and Eli delivered nothing but winning seasons while starting in college. Though none of them won a national championship or a Heisman – Tennessee fans will tell you all about how Peyton got robbed in 1997 – they were hailed major successes.
A simple winning record in Arch Manning’s first season starting wouldn’t be remembered the same way. The expectations are so far beyond that, heightened by his surname and also a well-stocked Texas roster backed by an NIL war chest.
This program seems like it sits on the precipice of greatness, and here’s a Manning to deliver it.
And if you expect that Manning deliver the world, maybe that’s unfair, and maybe that’s a recipe for disappointment. Or, perhaps, he’ll deliver the world. He’s a Manning, after all.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.