Louisiana-Born, NFL Legacy Arch Manning Gets First College Start

Across the state of Louisiana, and the rest of the football world, all eyes for a while were on Arch Manning.

A third-generation football athlete, Arch finally started stepping out of the shadows of his famous grandfather (Archie Manning) and uncles (Peyton and Eli Manning) with a successful and highly-publicized career at Isidore Newman in New Orleans. Although his team never won a state title, his years as a high school quarterback eclipsed both Peyton's and Eli's.

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There was quite the race for his commitment at the end of his high school career, and the Texas Longhorns won out.

But when the Longhorns' starting quarterback, Quinn Ewers, went down with an injury, Manning had to fill in. Now, he's got the starting job. For this week, at least.

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian has made it clear that Manning's start this week doesn't mean anything about the overall starting line-up. In fact, he wants Ewers to get the week to get healthy so he can be at 100 percent when SEC play starts.

"My thing is I'm not going to change," Sarkisian said. "This is what I was anticipating where we would be, and it was probably hard for a lot of other people to see when you're 5-7 [as he was in Year 1 in 2021], but we had a vision and a goal of where our program could be and the way we were going to get there, and so the messaging has been very consistent. I just don't think now is the time for me to start to change."

Change might not be the best thing for the Longhorns in the long run. They are the No. 1 team in the nation right now, and that's off the back of Ewers' work. To make the change would upset a lot of schematics.

And the Manning family is under no impression that Arch should be the starting quarterback. As Pat McAfee stated on ESPN's College GameDay, "The Manning family is old school, and you never lose a job because of an injury."

But the Louisiana portion of Manning's story isn't over.

On Saturday, the Longhorns play host to the University of Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks - a team that has a lot of players who have faced off against Manning, according to the defensive coordinator.

When asked about preparing to face Manning, defensive coordinator Earnest Hill said some of his players had played against Manning before when he was in high school. Manning attended Isidore Newman School in New Orleans, which is about 215 miles south of Louisiana-Monroe. Manning never won a state title during his high school career, so according to Hill, some of the Warhawks' players have beaten him before so they have no fear against him.
"We actually have some kids on our team that played against him in New Orleans," Hill said. "So they don't hold too much fear against him. So they're not gonna hold any fear against him."

But the Warhawks are facing the No. 1 team in the nation, and it isn't just Manning.

Kickoff in Austin is 7 p.m.