Today, there’s still no hiding from the spotlight for Arch Manning. Entering his first season as the starting quarterback for No. 1-ranked Texas, Manning is the most talked-about player in college football.
The next five months will be spent gauging whether Manning could also become its best player — and with it, live up to expectations as high as those for any quarterback in recent memory.
Stewart’s experience helping Manning navigate a “circus atmosphere” in high school, when “everywhere he went there was a camera,” leads him to believe Manning’s even-keel personality will be able to withstand the pressures that come from the combination of his famous lineage and his role as the face of one of college football’s most famous programs.
“He’s super intelligent, and he’s very meticulous, and he likes the detail of football,” Stewart said. “He likes to work. A lot of kids … you might kind of envision an entitlement, kind of almost coming in on a white horse. He’s nothing like that.”
Talent evaluators say the attention on Manning is justified. “He’s a high first-round pick” in the making, said a scout from an NFL team who wasn’t permitted to discuss prospects publicly. “Arch has all the tools but has to go do it. It’s just a production thing.”
Should he produce as expected this fall, he could influence the NFL before he even enters the league. If teams sense a possibility that Manning might declare for next spring’s NFL draft, they could “tank” their way to losses late in the season to put themselves in position to earn the top overall pick. Though Archie Manning, Arch’s grandfather, caused a stir when he told Texas Monthly that Arch would stay in college in 2026, Arch clarified later that “I don’t know where he got that from. … I’m really just taking it day by day right now.”
Connor Rogers, an NFL draft analyst for NBC Sports, said: “With a full season of actually being under center for a program with massive expectations, you get even more answers to the question of how ready will he be in terms of making that decision to go to the NFL or not. But in terms of raw physical ability as a prospect, he basically has everything you look for.”
The intrigue around Manning stems from a belief that he is not only a blend of his family’s quarterback traits but also his own, unique talent.
In elementary school, Arch wore glasses and was unassuming, Stewart said, but during flag football games, “nobody could pull his flag, and he could throw it anywhere.” That foot speed is reminiscent of his grandfather Archie, whose dynamism as a passer and runner made him a two-time Pro Bowl quarterback in the NFL.
“My dad’s sort of speed-skipped a generation,” Hall of Famer Peyton Manning said this summer. (Arch, for one, has said that “my dad was pretty fast; my mom was fast, too.”)
The manner in which Arch introduced himself at the 2019 Newman spring scrimmage — recognizing “press” coverage on the receiver to his right, then glancing at Stewart before changing the play before the snap, all in a matter of seconds, to set up his first touchdown pass — signaled he also had learned the analytical side of the position from Peyton, famed for his mastery of the playbook to compensate for his athleticism and arm strength. In recent years, Arch has gone to Denver for study sessions with Peyton that included breaking down practice film of Tom Brady, ESPN reported.
Yet while Arch can process coverages quickly, he can also “make throws I wouldn’t even think about making,” Peyton said.
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