Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian knows that his starting quarterback, Arch Manning, is entering the season with unreal expectations.
With the Manning name on his back, the name of the No. 1 team in the country on his front and seemingly the weight of the world on his shoulders, there's just no way Manning can escape the scrutiny. Sarkisian is trying to make his life easier ahead of the team's season-opener against Ohio State on Saturday.
“You don't have to do anything you've never done before,” Sarkisian said he told his QB, per InsideTexas. “We're not asking any superhuman effort of you to do anything that's extraordinary. Just go be you. What you've done is good enough to get us to this point.”
In terms of x's and o's, Sarkisian has tried to keep a level head about his star. Coming out of a scrimmage earlier in the month, he told the media that Manning wasn't “catastrophically bad.”
“I just know what he’s capable of,” he explained, per On3. “And so, we've just got to keep, you know, tightening the screws to make sure that he's performing the way, you know, he's capable of performing. And I think part of that is physically and part of that is, mentally, the leadership that he provides to the guys around him to allow them to help him play the way that he's capable of playing.”
Manning is stepping into the QB1 role after backing up Quinn Ewers a season ago. He threw for nine touchdowns and rushed for four more, winning both games he started. He told the media that, as he enters the limelight, he is doing his best to block out the noise.
“I’m just ready to play,” he said. “I don’t look at any of the media. If I see something I click not interested.”
The game between the Longhorns and Buckeyes will be a 1 vs. 3 showdown and a rematch of last year's Cotton Bowl. Kick-off is set for noon ET.
