Arch has been genuinely awful. I was listening to the Cover 3 podcast while walking the dog and they said that, sometimes, a player needs to be benched for a bit (even a series or two) to see the game differently. Sark wasn't afraid to bench Ewers like that last season and Arch wasn't scared of those moments. Something has changed; maybe Sark showing some backbone in the face of the Manning machine will galvanize Arch, too. If Arch can't handle a momentary benching he can't handle the pressures of playing quarterback at Texas. Plus, his family needs to realize he won't get drafted at all if he can't change.
Ewers' backup was Arch Manning. Arch's backup is ???. That's the difference in why he isn't likely to get benched. Beyond that, Ewers was only benched once last season for performance reasons - against Georgia in October. I'm not sure if Arch was scared of the moment or not, but he had two drives: one punt where the only first down was on a facemask penalty and one where he fumbled. Arch basically never saw the field again the rest of the season.
Except for designed run packages including his touchdown against A&M. Watch the replay of that run and tell me if you see the same guy we see right now.
If all you need is for him to run, he's still great at that. He leads the team in rushing yards, average per carry, and he's rushed for all 3 of the team's TDs this year.
If Baxter is ever fully healthy, you could go run-heavy, read-option type stuff for a good part of the game. That's putting a lot of pressure on your defense, though, to hold down the score against SEC teams who really like to score points
Yeah, it seems like the old-school SEC offenses that just had a capped upside. It'll probably win you a lot of games against the mid-tier teams, but you're probably going to lose a playoff game somewhere along the way when you get down 14-0 or something and can't keep up.
Sark covered up Ewer's injuries last season. I'm sure he is doing the same for Manning. He just looks out of sync. He just didn't become bad at throwing the ball. I would understand if he was misreading stuff, but he not delivering the ball even close to the target in some cases.
Better than going 3 and out. The problem is the run blocking has gotten worse since OSU. Guess you could argue Wisner and a healthy Baxter would make it better but that shouldn't be the case against SJS and UTEP. But I agree, limit offensive possessions and rely on your defense.
If you go back to the UTEP game, Manning misread a ton of plays. His timing seems completely off and is trying to make up for it by slinging or side arming balls all over the field. Obviously can't be sure if Manning is fully healthy but I don't think Sark is calling design runs for him in the 4th quarter against UTEP if he has some underlying injury.
What's the benefit to covering up injuries? At least if he's injured, people won't boo him and scouts won't think he sucks. I don't know what the upside is here to saying "no, he's not injured, that's just who he is!"
He was miss diagnosed. It’s was an abdomen tear and not a tummy ache or whatever. I hope those dollar tree doctors were fired for that tbh.
Watch Manning's feet. I've never played football, but from watching his feet, you can tell his mechanics are bad.
So weird when you were trained all your life by 3 NFL quarterbacks. If anything, he should have flawless mechanics and footwork. If he isn't going to make it, I would expect it to be more about reads and decision making vs mechanics.
It's absolutely baffling. Those issues weren't present in his 2 starts last year, or in his garbage time. He had a good deep ball last year. It was against poor competition, but he also struggled against similar tier teams this year. Nobody from UT or Manning's camp has shed light on his issues which is leading to all the speculation that he's hurt or got the yips.
