It wouldn’t be the first week of football without overreactions, and there were plenty regarding Arch Manning following his rough season debut against Ohio State on Saturday. In the season opener, Manning went 17-for-30 for 170 yards, one touchdown and one interception as the Longhorns scored just seven points on the afternoon. Manning missed multiple throws, and was shaky throughout a significant portion of the game.
Manning’s lackluster performance naturally drew plenty of criticism, including some believing that he isn’t all he was hyped up to be heading into the season.
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While there wasn’t a ton of highlight moments to take away from Manning’s performance, seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady believes Manning can turn the disappointing showing into a positive. Brady acknowledged that this down game comes with the “curse” of “people piling on” his poor play, it can also come with the “blessing” of rebounding from the experience.
“The blessing is there needs to be resilience built up in a quarterback as well,” Brady told Cris Collinsworth during a Pro Football Focus interview. “Even though he didn’t have his best game and they lost, if he uses this to his advantage, he’s gonna be tougher for it. And he’s gonna have a better next game because of it. I always felt like you’ve gotta deal with a lot of adversity from a quarterback standpoint to toughen you up to be the true leader for the organization.”
Before Saturday’s game, Manning hadn’t necessarily dealt with a lot of adversity to this point of his football career. He was a five-star recruit in ESPN’s class of 2023 recruiting rankings, and is from one of America’s most famous football families. He won both of his starts last season, but he was going up weaker opponents, not the reigning College Football Playoff national champions in Ohio State.
Saturday’s loss was the toughest test Manning has faced in his young career, and as Brady said, how he bounces back will say a lot about him as a quarterback. For now though, he’s just three starts into his college career, and the verdict on how good he will be remains unclear.
“There’s a long season to play out,” Brady said. “Arch has years beyond this to still play in college if he wants, but it’s gonna be up to him to see how deep he wants to dig within himself in order to be successful. There’s nothing to show that he won’t be that. He’s been that way in high school, even last year. He’s got a lot of good people around him that know exactly what to do.”
Following their loss to Ohio State, Manning and the Longhorns should get plenty of chances to rebound with upcoming games against San José State, UTEP and Sam Houston. Their next true challenge should come on Oct. 4, when they play Florida at The Swamp.
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