Desmond Howard claims Arch Manning still benefits from his off last name: 'If his name was Charlie Brown, we'd make fun of him'

Desmond Howard claimed Arch Manning still benefits from his last name as far as why he’s held in high regard as a quarterback. The ESPN college football analyst, speaking on College GameDay on Saturday morning in Miami, said Manning “is who he is.”

Manning’s shown flashes, again, but hasn’t put together consistent play through three games this season. Now the full-time starter, there’s been a lot put on the plate of Manning and a Texas team that was expected to compete for a national title.

It’s by no means over yet, considering we’re just through a quarter of the season. But Manning’s struggles, mental or physical, are evident right now and they won’t take the next step until their QB does.

“With all the resources available to these players nowadays, I mean, they have quarterback coaches, they have mental coaches, he’s in Texas, they have all the resources available that any college football player can ask for,” Howard said on College GameDay. “So you wonder, why is he still struggling? If it’s a mental thing, you would think that their coaching staff would have recognized this and they would have addressed it. If it’s the footwork, which all of us see on film, you would think that the coaching staff would have recognized this and addressed this. 

“I just think he’s just a good quarterback. If his name was Charlie Brown, we would make fun of him, but we wouldn’t have these lofty expectations of him playing the quarterback position. I think he is who he is, what we see … We just have to let him be. You know, that’s gonna be a long season, though, for the Longhorns, because I think they had greater expectations. I’m not sure why, because he’s been in the system long enough that they know what they get (from) him, but it’s gonna be a long season. They got this game this week, and they have a bye, and then they jump into the SEC schedule and it may get ugly.”

Others, like Nick Saba,n pushed back on any narrative that Manning should be benched right now. There are myriad factors to Manning’s uneven start.

“I think a couple things. I don’t think Texas has been able to run the ball very consistently, and that puts you in a lot of tough down-and-distance situations. That puts more pressure on the quarterback, because that’s an advantage for the defense,” Saban stated. “When we had a player that was struggling, or when we lost, I always wanted to be as technical as I could be, so the players could actually see: if I just do this correctly, we can have success. Rather than putting a lot of pressure on them, I wanted to focus on the technical side of corrections—whether it’s footwork, arm mechanics, or making the right reads …

“I don’t think you only bench a guy if he’s struggling. You do it when you feel like he’s not committed to doing things the right way, or if his actions are really having a negative impact on the team—especially from an attitude standpoint. If he’s trying to do it right, you stick with him.”