It’s not often we get a Week 1 college football matchup as juicy as Texas at Ohio State this weekend, but the hype around Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning blew every other storyline around the game out of the water.
With all eyes on Ohio Stadium, the two top teams fought through a low-scoring, defense-first battle. Manning, who came into the college football season as the Heisman favorite, the NIL king, and the main character of all the coverage of the sport, did not live up the hype in his first-ever road start for Texas.
The nephew of NFL champion uncles Peyton and Eli Manning completed just 17 of 30 passes for a mere 170 yards, with one touchdown and one interception. His highly praised running ability hardly materialized, as he managed just 38 yards on 10 attempts.
As a result, the sports media spent most of Saturday afternoon backpedalling from the lofty perch upon which they had placed Manning all summer.
Primarily, analysts were confronted with the fact that it will take time for Manning to be the kind of player who could win the Heisman or a national title in his first season as a starter.
Many straddled the line between criticism and praise, preaching patience.
Some acknowledged the poor performance but appeared to blame Steve Sarkisian and the Texas coaching staff for Manning’s struggles.
Others made the same joke about the number of Arch Manning commercials (mostly for eyeglass company Warby Parker) compared with Arch Manning completions.
And then of course there were the jokes. Plenty of jokes.
You don’t get a half-decade of hype and lay that type of egg in your debut as the full-time guy and not get dunked on online.
It won’t take long before Manning is subjected to the full gamut of sports talk discourse on Monday. The radio and TV shows likely won’t be kind to the sophomore QB, given his family history and the attention paid to him.
But it’s a long season, and college football these days offers plenty of leeway for highly touted teams with tough schedules. Manning played this poorly, and Texas still barely lost to the reigning champs. If he can improve over the course of the season and beat the teams he “should,” Manning and the Longhorns are still in position for the College Football Playoff.
Saturday’s stinker simply shows that the sports media energy around Manning was likely premature, and the hosts are already backing off their lofty expectations for the famed QB.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.