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Arch Manning vs. the Rest of the SEC QBs: How Manning has improved in recent weeks

by: Evan Vieth10/15/25
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Arch Manning (Will Gallagher/Inside Texas)

Almost a month ago, to the day, we posted an article just like this one, comparing Texas QB Arch Manning to the rest of the SEC signal-callers.

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If you remember correctly, it wasn’t pretty.

Manning was at the bottom in four of the five stats presented, and was in a tier of terrible with Kentucky’s Zach Calzada in EPA/Play. This came after Week 3, where Manning struggled mightily against a bad UTEP defense, and had most of the CFB world calling him a fraud or bust.

Since then, it’s been up and down for Manning. Sam Houston was awesome, Florida wasn’t. Oklahoma, however, was a fantastic game for Manning from an efficiency standpoint. He completed over 75% of his passes and led his team to his first Red River Rivalry win as a starter.

A lot has changed in the SEC since that article was produced. Trinidad Chambliss took over for Austin Simmons and has Ole Miss as a potential SEC title team. Cutter Boley took over for the terrible Calzada, and Marcel Reed has Texas A&M as one of the best teams in the nation. John Mateer, however, is not a Heisman candidate anymore. So how does Manning compare halfway through the year?

Manning is no longer in the ‘terrible tier’ with Calzada and DJ Lagway. That belongs to Boley and Jackson Arnold. He’s now near the middle of the pack on things like yards per attempt, adjusted yards per attempt and NFL Passer rating. The problem for him is on BTT/TWP (or big time throws over turnover-worthy plays) and expected points added. He’s still made a lot of turnover-worthy throws, and his per-play efficiency is near the bottom of the conference.

But this lacks some context. A lot of these QBs have been beating up on some FCS-level schools or other P4 programs that just aren’t that good defensively.

Using Kelley Ford’s defense ratings, this is how these QBs are performing against top-40 defenses, with their opponents shown below.

As you can see, Manning has played against two top-three defenses and @ a top-20 one. His stats don’t look amazing, especially the big-time throws, but they’re far better than some other notable names. Diego Pavia has been bad against Bama and South Carolina. Garrett Nussmeier has been about average. John Mateer looks really bad with these.

But you can see that Manning is still notably behind the likes of Simpson in efficiency and Aguilar in big plays. Even Marcel Reed looks great, though he’s still putting the ball in harm’s way.

Manning has a lot of work to get into this upper echelon, but the blueprint is clearly there. He had his most efficient game of the year against one of the best defenses in the nation. They won’t have to deal with a top-35 defense until after the bye. Georgia and A&M, while possessing top-15 units, are maybe closer to Florida than they are to Oklahoma.

The playbook is going to expand a bit over the next three weeks as Texas takes on a meh Kentucky team and two good but not great defenses in Mississippi State and Vanderbilt. When we come back to this in three weeks, there’s a good chance Manning has jumped ahead of a few of the QBs 4-8 in these rankings.

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