Steve Sarkisian evaluates Arch Manning after first scrimmage for Texas

Texas QB Arch Manning continues to get closer to his full-on college debut. So, through two weeks of fall practice and coming out of the team’s first scrimmage of the preseason, how has the Longhorns’ new starting quarterback looked and progressed?

Steve Sarkisian, speaking to the media after practice on Monday, shared how Manning has played coming out of this weekend’s scrimmage and into this week. That’s with Sarkisian understanding they’re still only around the halfway point of fall camp as Manning continues to develop, while he also noted that he practiced well on Monday.

“I don’t know if I have necessarily expectations, you know,” said Sarkisian. “I think, when we visited with Arch coming out of Saturday, there was probably five or six plays that I’m very confident he’s going to make as we move forward, you know. Saturday was, what, our ninth practice of fall camp. It’d be like, essentially a preseason game. It’d be like playing the Hall of Fame Game, right. So, to think that we’re a fine-tuned machine in that practice? Probably not realistic.

“But he came out today and had a great practice.”

To this point, Manning is just continuing to prepare himself on and off of the field. That’s with two and a half weeks left before he and his now top overall-ranked team take the field for their top-three opener up in Columbus.

“And so, again, that work in progress? He didn’t do anything, like, catastrophically bad, but I just know what he’s capable of,” said Sarkisian. “And so, we’ve just got to keep, you know, tightening the screws to make sure that he’s performing the way, you know, he’s capable of performing. And I think part of that is physically and part of that is, mentally, the leadership that he provides to the guys around him to allow them to help him play the way that he’s capable of playing.”

Sarkisian calls out national perception of Arch Manning

Steve Sarkisian called out the national perception of Arch Manning going into the upcoming season, saying the Longhorns are keeping everything in-house. Essentially, they don’t listen to any noise that could be distracting to individual players or the team.

“What I know is what I see every day, and he seems good to me,” Sarkisian said. “You know, we visit a fair amount to make sure that what frame of mind is he in, where I think he performs the best. This is going to be a long season and, unfortunately, we live in a world of he’s the greatest ever or is going to be a bust and there’s not a lot of in between. And it’s kind of like where we are as a team. We’re either going to be national champs or we’re going to be a bust.

“Like, that’s the mentality outside of our building. We don’t really think that way. I don’t think Arch thinks that way. I think Arch thinks about, ‘What am I doing today to improve? What am I doing today to be the best teammate I can be when the game weeks roll around? What am I doing to prepare to put myself in the best position to perform?’. I just don’t think he’s that concerned.””

As Sarkisian put it, Texas, led now by Manning, is in the right frame of mind right now. They plan to keep it that way throughout this season on The 40 Acres.

“No offense to you guys with what you guys write and say. It just, I don’t think it matters to him,” Sarkisian said. “I really don’t. I think it’s more about what do his teammates think about him? And that’s a cool thing to have. And so, but I don’t know yet because we really haven’t gotten into the fire as much as the hoopla has happened. We really haven’t gotten into the fire of real games and dealing with that in game, postgame, next week’s game, so on and so forth and really deal with the media that way.”