It’s against much inferior competition, but Arch Manning is bouncing back.
He completed 11 of 18 passes for 180 yards, four touchdowns and one interception during the first half of Texas’ clash against San Jose State on Saturday afternoon at Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium.
His first touchdown pass went for 83 yards to Parker Livingstone.
The Longhorns went into halftime with a 28-7 lead.
It follows his disastrous showing in Texas’ 14-7, season-opening loss to Ohio State on the road last week.
Manning largely looked overmatched, completing just 17 of 30 passes for 170 yards with a touchdown and an interception.
Much of that production came late in the fourth quarter, with Texas trailing by two scores.
The loss bumped Texas from a preseason No. 1 ranking down to No. 7.
There are enormous expectations for Manning given his family history.
He is Eli and Peyton Manning’s nephew and the grandson of Archie — all of whom were legendary NFL quarterbacks.
The younger Manning was also the No. 1-ranked recruit in the 2023 class, only adding to the immense pressure on his shoulders.
“I hold myself to a high standard,” Manning said this past week about his Week 1 performance. “I’ve got to play better, got to lead more, got to get our guys to play well around me and ultimately I wasn’t good enough.”
Head coach Steve Sarkisian said that Manning took a lesson away from that game.
“There were a couple times where we had some crossing routes where I didn’t feel like he brought his feet to where he wanted to throw the ball, which in turn forced kind of a little bit more of a sidearm delivery, which isn’t his style of throwing,” Sarkisian said. “Part of that is just finding that comfort level of trust with receivers in real games — not in practice, not against the scout team, but in a real game — against a good defense because the windows get small against good defenses like that.
“So definitely lesson learned on that stuff.”