Tim Tebow demands Texas OL improve protection of Arch Manning

Heading into this weekend’s 121st edition of the ‘Red River Rivalry,’ Texas quarterback Arch Manning will need much better protection from his offensive line. Without it, the game could get ugly.

Manning, who was the perennial preseason Heisman Trophy favorite, hasn’t quite lit the world on fire this season. Through five games, he’s passed for 1,151 yards, 11 touchdowns and five interceptions. He and his offensive line did a great job of avoiding sacks through the first four games, as he went down just a total of three times.

Last weekend’s 29-21 loss at Florida, however, was an absolute disaster for the Longhorn O-line. Manning was sacked six times and threw two interceptions in the loss in The Swap. Ahead of Manning’s first taste of Texas‘ rivalry against No. 6 Oklahoma this weekend, College Football Hall of Famer Tim Tebow demanded that his O-line improve their protection on Friday’s edition of ‘The Paul Finebaum Show.’

Tim Tebow calls out Texas’ O-Line for Manning’s struggles

“I think one of the things that we saw last week was a resilience and a toughness,” Tebow said. “He got hit a bunch. If we’re gonna focus on something, I think the start should be the offensive line. They have to protect him. You have to be able to give him time. You have a defense line for Florida that, when healthy, can be pretty dang good. But they dominated that game.

“They totally took the game over, and I don’t put all of that on Arch. I put a lot of that on the offensive line, and he’s got to have time to get it down the field. So I was really impressed with his toughness. Obviously, there are some plays he’d want back. There was a post-route he had for a touchdown, but he also was taking shot after shot after shot and he did a great job of getting right back up.”

David Pollack also refused to put any blame on Arch Manning

On the latest edition of David Pollack‘s ‘See Ball Get Ball with David Pollack‘ podcast, Pollack refused to put any blame on Manning or the offensive line. Instead, he went after Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian. He claimed that Sark isn’t getting enough flak for his quarterback’s struggles.

“That is a big-time deal for them. They’ve got so much money and it makes it so easy to continue to be successful when you have that much money,” Pollack said. “At the same time, when you look at Texas and their roster and the ability they have to spend and they’ve had a couple of good seasons, you have to look back a little bit and say Sark is 2-8 against Top-10 teams at Texas. We’re gonna talk about Arch because he’s not playing well. But whose job is it to make sure he plays well? It’s the coach’s job. It’s the offensive play caller’s job… who is Steve Sarkisian.”

Manning will attempt to lead Texas to its first win over a Power-Four program this weekend in the ‘Red River Rivalry’, which kicks off at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday. The game can be seen on ABC.