Steve Sarkisian reacts to Arch Manning struggles, reliance on QB run

The Texas Longhorns earned a win over the weekend against UTEP. That didn’t come without some major concerns about quarterback Arch Manning, which head coach Steve Sarkisian looked to address following the game.

Sarkisian explained after the game that he tries to let a quarterback like Manning be athletic and run when he gets into trouble passing the ball. The problem is that it can become a crutch. In particular, when the passing game isn’t there, it’s too easy to then get into bad habits running the ball.

“You’re always evaluating,” Steve Sarkisian said. “You’re always kind of feeling the flow of the game as a coach, as a play caller, as an offensive staff. And then you try to get back to some things that you know he really likes that we’ve talked about all week long and that we talked about on Friday. ‘Hey, I really like this.’ Then, when that’s not really hitting the way we want, then I always kind of in my back pocket, have this idea of I need to let him run and I need to let him run around. I need to let him start playing football.”

Manning finished completing just 11 of 25 passes for 114 yards and one touchdown with one interception. He also rushed 51 yards and two touchdowns on the ground. Notably, that included 10 incomplete passes in a row at one point and the boo birds raining down from the home team.

“But I felt like he pressed some tonight. He knew he was missing some throws that I think he’s comfortable making. And then you start skipping reads and scrambling and relying on his legs too much. That’s always my caution, is that when you have a little success with your legs,” Sarkisian said. “Then you start to rely on your legs, and then we’re out of scheme, and now we’re just playing athlete football. And athlete football can get you so far, but sooner or later, that catches up with you, too.”

There are plenty of experts and pundits around the country who had hyped Arch Manning to Heisman-contender levels over the offseason. That includes Paul Finebaum. Now, Finebaum and company seem to be out on Manning. However, Sarkisian still believes in what Texas is doing and even compared it to the Wyoming game from 2023.

“We’ve got to get back to believing in the scheme and believing in the guys around us, whether they’re blocking for us or catching for us or whatever that is, to give us the best chance to be successful long term. This reminds me a lot of the Wyoming game here a couple years ago, where the passing game kind of struggled. We kind of leaned into the run game with Jonathan Brooks that night, and I think we hit kind of a quick screen to Xavier [Worthy] for a touchdown, and that we really didn’t do much that night in the passing game, and there was a real level of frustration. But we righted the ship that season as well, and we’ll right the ship now. We’ve got really good coaches,” Sarkisian said.

“We’ve got really good players, and we’re going to need all of our team to have the type of season that we want to have. And we’ve got facets of it that are performing really good. Defensively, I love the fact that we got the return game going in special teams, and we were running the ball a little better. I think there’s more yards out there to get in the run game.”

Texas will round out non-conference play against Sam Houston State next week. There, Sarkisian and Manning will look to take another step forward before the beginning of SEC play this season.

“But we’ve got to find a level of consistency on offense with all 11 players, down after down. That’s the standard around here,” Sarkisian said. “And we’re just not performing to the standard as we’re accustomed to.”