Head coach Steve Sarkisian’s Texas Longhorns entered this college football season with more hype than anyone in the country, which was shown by their preseason number-one ranking in the AP poll, thanks in large part to the presence of Arch Manning on the roster. Although Manning had never served as a full-time starter at the college level entering the season, he’d shown flashes of what made him a five-star recruit in his high school days last year when he started in place of an injured Quinn Ewers.
ESPN’s Paul Finebaum went as far as to call Manning “the best college football quarterback we have seen since Tim Tebow entered the scene in 2006.”
Another ESPN employee, expert Mel Kiper, ranked Manning as the number one quarterback prospect in the 2026 class, despite Manning never giving any indication that he intended to declare early after his junior season.
“We put him at No. 1 because we have to. It’s Arch Manning. We saw glimpses last year of the greatness he could provide that Texas offense. Running the football, he’s got great legs. Cooper Manning, his father, was a wide receiver until he got injured. So he’s got speed – something Eli and Peyton didn’t have,” Kiper said.
Things changed once the regular season arrived. Manning struggled mightily in the season opener on the road against the Ohio State Buckeyes, a game the Longhorns lost, and his struggles reappeared seemingly whenever Texas played Power 4 competition in the first half of the season.
However, Manning eventually turned things around, stringing together several strong showings down the stretch and even leading the Longhorns to a win over the undefeated Texas A&M Aggies to get the Longhorns back in the playoff conversation.
Showing his improvement in the College Football Playoff, the sport’s biggest stage, against the top competition the sport has to offer, would set him up nicely to go higher in the NFL draft than it looked like he would’ve in the early part of the season if he decided to declare early.
Unfortunately for Manning, on Tuesday, the penultimate College Football Playoff rankings were revealed, and the math involved all but confirms that the Longhorns would not be getting into the Playoff, putting a ceiling on Manning’s ability to elevate his draft stock anymore.
Fans reacted to Texas’s plight on social media.
“The committee putting Texas at 13 is absolute ROBBERY. They have the BEST resume of wins of any team in the country. We will NEVER get marquee non-conference games now. There is NO BENEFIT to playing competition based on the committee’s decision,” one person wrote on Twitter.
“It’s deserved. Loss to a bad Florida team and needed overtime to beat Kentucky and Miss St. Then got destroyed by Georgia,” someone else added.
“The Aggies are 7. They have no respect for Texas. If they did then the Aggies wouldn’t be the last 11-1 team,” another fan wrote.
It’ll be interesting to see if this impacts Manning’s decision on whether or not to return for his senior season.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.