Nick Saban pushes back on idea of Texas benching Arch Manning amid struggles

Some have floated the idea of benching Arch Manning amid his struggles to begin the 2025 college football season. Nick Saban joined The Pat McAfee Show on Friday to push back on that notion.

“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 wanted players to be able to see that if they did it right, we could succeed. And everybody has to do it right for the team to have success. That’s what I always tried to emphasize.

“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.

“When you bench somebody, you’d better make sure the guy you put in is going to be better than the one you took out. Otherwise, you just create more problems for yourself.”

As you can tell, that’s a pretty sound assessment from Saban. Pat McAfee was in agreement, but he compared Manning’s struggles to DJ Lagway’s — the Texas quarterback and the Florida signal caller have to grow through what they’re going through.

“I don’t know if Arch is at that point yet, but benching can sometimes give a player a different perspective,” McAfee added. “Now, I’m not saying Arch should be benched—okay, I’m never going to be the person to say that. But it hasn’t exactly started out great.

“And let’s talk about DJ Lagway. There have been a lot of quarterbacks coming into this year that we thought were going to be the guys. I think Desmond Howard mentioned it this morning—he said this was supposed to be one of the best draft classes of quarterbacks we’ve ever seen. I don’t think that conversation is still happening. We’re, what, four weeks into the season at this point?”

Time will tell if Manning and Lagway figure it out, and whether or not they’re given the opportunity to continue to grow through this rough patch. The two quarterbacks are supremely talented, but Saban isn’t relegating anyone to the bench just yet.