Texas has the most famous backup quarterback in sports as Arch Manning awaits his turn behind Quinn Ewers. Fittingly, Longhorns offensive coordinator Kyle Floodwas asked about Manning’s progressionduring Friday’s press conference leading up to the Sugar Bowl clash with Washington.
“We’ve got a ton of confidence in Arch. I think his progression throughout the year has been excellent,” Flood said. “He’s a real student of the game. And he’s approached it like that from the very beginning. So I think probably the best thing for him and for us as a team was that when that happened, it was very easy for him to just continue to do what he was doing, because he had never — he never approached it like he was the third quarterback or the backup quarterback. He approaches everything like he’s the starting quarterback. And I think that’s the key when you’re in a reserve role of being ready when you’re called upon.”
Arch was originally third on the depth chart, but Maalik Murphy’s transfer to Duke gives him QB2 status.
I would start by saying in recruiting, we don’t lead with NIL. That’s not how we do it. I think teams that have done that have really not prospered. I don’t think that’s the way you build a team. I don’t think that’s the way you build the right kind of locker room. NIL is a part of college football now. So certainly, we’ve embraced it like everybody else has. But we weren’t the only team in the country recruiting those players that had NIL opportunities for them. I’m sure other schools did as well. We felt like it was really important to add quality players to that room. We never set out to sign seven. We ultimately did. They kept saying yes, so we kept taking them. And they’re all still with us, which I think is maybe one of the more understated things about the culture that Coach [Steve] Sarkisian has built at Texas.
