Steve Sarkisian evaluates Arch Manning's college debut

Arch Manning was awarded his first minutes of college football action during Friday night’s 57-7 victory over Texas Tech.

While he wasn’t able to produce much — Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian still evaluated his five-star freshman quarterback’s performance in his collegiate debut with an eye toward the future.

“Backups are always kind of the fan favorite, but when Arch went in the crowd was buzzing. We had to try to quiet the crowd,” Sarkisian said postgame. “Probably there are some butterflies and some anxiousness first time playing early on.

“But one thing I was impressed with was in that last 90-yard drive with with our 2s. What a drive for those guys. Super proud for them. Two good third-down conversions in there, the conversion to Johntay (Cook), the conversion to Casey Cain. In the previous drive, he used his legs really well. Things for him to build upon moving forward but happy he was able to get in.”

Manning finished the game with two completions on five passing attempts for 30 yards. The first completion came on the previously mentioned thrid down conversion to Cook, which went for 17 yards and a first down for the Longhorns. The completion to Cain was good for 13 yards on a fourth down conversion in Red Raider territory during the final minutes of regulation.

Of course, Manning only saw action after starter Quinn Ewers was subbed out due to the ever-growing lead. He finished the game completing 17 of 26 passing for 196 yards, one touchdodwn and an interception. While Ewers didn’t have a breakout game by any means, he was aided by three rushing touchdowns, special teams helped out and even got one from his defense to help lead the Longhorns to a 50-point victory and finish the season 11-1.

Interestingly, some were surprised it was Manning to come into the game instead of Maalik Murphy, who made two winning starts for the Longhorns while Ewers was hurt in an attempt to preserve Manning’s redshirt.

After the game, Sarkisian revealed that Murphy injured his shoulder while watching the game on the sideline. The Texas head coach said when the play went out of bounds, Murphy was caught in the cross-hairs and taken to the locker room for further evaluation.

Texas will need to be at full strength during all levels of its depth chart when it plays in the Big 12 Championship game next weekend. The Longhorns’ opponent is still to be determined as of this report — but will be decided by the end of Saturday.