With the Texas football team moving on from the disappointing 14-7 loss to the Ohio State Buckeyes in the opening game of the season, there's no doubt that headlines have been on the frustrating performance from quarterback Arch Manning. As the Texas football team looks to address the areas of improvement for Week 2, head coach Steve Sarkisian would go back to the loss and express his feelings about the game plan.
While there was a ton of hype around the Longhorns and especially Manning, the star signal-caller ended up throwing for 170 yards, along with a touchdown pass and an interception. However, Sarkisian and Manning led the offense to a scoreless first half that prompted the head coach to speak to Manning for a conversation about how to get the unit back on track.
“I was pretty frustrated coming out at the first half,” Sarkisian said, according to On3 Sports. “Because I felt like we had a good plan. But I wasn’t mad in the sense I felt like, if I could just calm Arch and get him into a space. That’s why we met him directly at halftime. Like I said, I thought we played a really good second half.”
“If you would have told me we were going to go out and have just about 260 yards in the second half against that defense, but only score seven points, that’s where the disappointment came in that we weren’t able to get more points,” Sarkisian continued. “Our ability to move the football in the second half.”
The area that Texas football's Arch Manning needs to improve on
It was a rough outing for the Texas football star in Manning, who only threw one touchdown pass that occurred with under four minutes left in the entire game. Still a sophomore, Sarkisian would speak on the aspects that he still needs to hone in on, like “recognizing” the different coverages defenses will throw at him.
“With Arch, it was just recognizing how we could identify their coverages a little bit better. The plan of the things that we were gonna go to in the second half and how we expected to attack them. Like I said, I thought he understood. Took it really well. Was really receptive to how we were gonna recognize their coverages and attack them a little bit differently. I thought he responded well to that,” Sarkisian said.
“I think offensively, it was just getting back to not losing sight of the run game, which was effective early, but utilizing some of the passing game and being more effective in the passing game to be a more efficient offense,” Sarkisian continued. “Which I thought we were in the second half. It wasn’t to where we want to be, but we were much better in the second half than we were in the first half.”
At any rate, Manning and the Longhorns look to bounce back in their Week 2 matchup against San Jose State.
