Georgia’s onside kick in the fourth quarter will haunt the Texas football team for a while. What had been a tense game flipped into a 35-10 defeat, leaving the Longhorns 7-3 and their College Football Playoff hopes hanging by a thread. Arch Manning owned his part afterward, acknowledging that against a defense like Georgia’s, he cannot afford misses like the sidearm interception to KJ Bolden, and when asked what frustrated him most, he boiled it down to one word: losing.
Now, he is doing the same with how he handles his teammates’ mistakes. Asked about his receivers dropping key passes, Manning gave Inside Texas’ Evan Vieth a simple, two-word mantra:
“Move on. I mean, there's been countless times where I have not thrown them a ball and they bailed me out. You just have to move on, learn from it. Keep going.”
That answer says as much about how he sees leadership as it does about the stat sheet.
The tape shows what critics like Emmanuel Acho have pointed out: Texas football team receivers left plays on the field against Georgia, and the young quarterback did not always get much help.
Drops in high-leverage spots and a passing game that never fully synced made Manning’s 251 yards and one touchdown feel emptier than the box score suggests. Instead of throwing his wideouts under the bus, he chose to frame the night as part of the back-and-forth between quarterback and receivers that evens out over time.
Steve Sarkisian, meanwhile, has zeroed in on another problem. He said the run game simply has to be better after Texas managed only 23 rushing yards against Georgia, the third time this season they have been held under 60.
For the year, Texas sits near the bottom nationally in rushing production, and lead backs CJ Baxter and Quintrevion Wisner are averaging under four yards per carry. As Sarkisian noted, that kind of imbalance makes the offense increasingly one-dimensional and easier to defend.
So the path forward is clear enough.
For Texas to salvage anything from a season that once carried playoff expectations, Manning has to keep that “move on” mindset, his receivers have to match his standard in big moments, and Sarkisian’s offense must finally find a credible ground game to keep the sophomore quarterback from having to do it all through the air.
