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Good or bad, Steve Sarkisian and Arch Manning are tied at the hip

Eric Nahlinby: Eric Nahlin08/31/25
Texas Steve Sarkisian, Arch Manning
(Will Gallagher | Inside Texas)

The day after a loss is typically the best time to offer sober analysis after an emotion fueled day. But, I didn’t really feel a whole lot of emotions watching the Texas game yesterday, other than frustration. 

Sark wasn’t as bad as some fans are saying

I’ve seen a lot of blame directed towards Steve Sarkisian. That’s fine and well—the head coach should take the fall—but I think fans blaming him for the loss, or having a vanilla game plan, aren’t adjusting for context. The context was Arch Manning wasn’t ready to perform at a high level, or even an average one. Dialing up more shifts and motions likely would have flustered Arch further while leading to even more false starts.

It is Sark’s job to get his QB ready but he can’t control Arch’s composure in his first road start in a very hostile environment. In his pregame interview, Sark stated he felt good about Arch’s composure. It didn’t take long for Arch to bely that confidence when he spiked a rollout 10 yards short to DeAndre Moore on the first play of the game. 

My main criticism of Sark was the 4th and 3 low percentage throw to Parker Livingstone in the end zone. He had two downs to get three yards. Securing a first down should have been all he cared about. The first rule of business is don’t go broke. He went broke on that series. The sneak from Arch on the goal line wasn’t exactly inspired either. 

Arch was bad

He seemed too amped up. Experience will fix that. 

He made bad reads, bad throws, often with poor mechanics, and left a ton of yards on the field. He had very poor control of his velocity. It reminded me of Super Bowl XXIV when the Niners crushed the Broncos. Everybody knew John Elway was a sensational talent but he came out way too amped and airmailed his first few throws. He never really settled in and the Niners rolled.

The stat about Arch’s inaccuracy—it was the most inaccurate performance in 10 years by a Texas quarterback—offers more more evidence he was unsettled from the start. He is typically accurate. That wasn’t the quarterback we’ve heard about. We saw glimpses of that QB on a couple of scrambles and impressive throws late in the game, but all too often he reverted to his previous level of play.

Excuses can’t be made for Arch’s game but it’s not the end of the world, far from it.

September is going to be massive for settling him down within the offense. Once that happens it’s very likely his mechanics will return and you’ll see more first-down conversions and big gainers on simple concepts like mesh. Those were often available on Saturday.

In many ways, Steve Sarkisian and Arch Manning are tied at the hip. If one has a poor performance, the chances the other one does will go way up. Most of the issues we saw on Saturday stem from an inexperienced QB rather than a coach who “can’t win the big one.”

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