Dabo Swinney: Arch Manning will be ‘superstar,’ doubters are ‘stupid’

Dabo Swinney claimed Arch Manning would be a superstar and it’s wild that he has doubters, especially after the season opener. The Clemson head coach has seen a lot in his time in college football, including with his own team.

In the case of Manning, many pegged the nephew of Peyton and Eli as the next big thing, Heisman winner and No. 1 pick. After one bad game against Ohio State, the Texas QB was thrown to the side.

Swinney saw it with his quarterback Cade Klubnik. Klubnik was coming off a career year, had a bad opener against LSU and, like Manning, was thrown to the side.

“None of that stuff matters, but these are young people, right? These are kids,” Swinney said. “They’re not robots. I mean, I know we have so much talk about Arch, right? Arch Manning is gonna be a freaking superstar. And people that don’t believe that, they’re just stupid. He’s gonna be a superstar …But, what’s been put on this kid? I mean, like, I mean, it’s unbelievable. And all sudden, now it’s like, okay, you make a bad play or, I mean, the guys just playing, it’s the same thing with our guy, you know? 

“Like he’s the worst quarterback in the history of football and then he goes to, now he’s a Heisman guy, now he sucks again. So that’s football. But you just, you just have to learn how to manage that stuff … This is what you sign up for … This is what we do … this is our world. You fail in front of everybody, and you succeed in front of everybody, and you got to be able to handle both of those things.”

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian admitted he had some frustrations with his offense and met with Manning directly at halftime. While the second half had some more positive moments, it wasn’t enough.

“I was pretty frustrated coming out at the first half,” Sarkisian said. “Because I felt like we had a good plan. But I wasn’t mad in the sense I felt like, if I could just calm Arch and get him into a space. That’s why we met him directly at halftime. Like I said, I thought we played a really good second half. If you would have told me we were going to go out and have just about 260 yards in the second half against that defense, but only score seven points, that’s where the disappointment came in that we weren’t able to get more points. Our ability to move the football in the second half.”

Manning would finish the game receiving his fair share of criticism. At times, his inexperience showed, and he missed a couple of throws that fans thought he should have made. In total, he completed 17 of 30 passes for 170 yards, a touchdown, and an interception. He also rushed for 38 yards.