Will Steve Sarkisian get second-guessed over Quinn Ewers-Arch Manning decision?

Quinn Ewers’ slide to the seventh round has ignited an entire new series of debates about Arch Manning, the quarterback situation at Texas in 2024 and 2025 and the evaluation of QBs in general, and you have questions…

From Brian:
I think you [and co-host Ari Wasserman] are both right that Arch Manning is more likely to be good than not, but do you think there’s any Jackson Arnold-type potential where they pushed out a highly successful starter for the younger guy and it ends up looking like a mistake by mid-season?

Brian brings up a possibility that every coach needs to consider when he has a fairly successful veteran starter (with eligibility remaining) and a highly touted young quarterback waiting in the wings. That the situation just happened to the Longhorns’ biggest rival makes the dynamic even more interesting.

Before we dive in, I do want to slightly correct something from Brian’s question. Oklahoma didn’t push out Dillon Gabriel following the 2023 season in favor of Arnold. My understanding of that situation is that it became clear Gabriel was leaving when offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby took the Mississippi State head coach job. Perhaps Oklahoma coaches would have chosen Arnold anyway, but it sounds as if the decision was made for them. 

That said, it was abundantly clear during the 2024 season that Oklahoma would have been better off with Gabriel starting. Arnold was thrown into a brutal situation. The line wasn’t very good. The best receivers were hurt. And Arnold’s lack of experience only made the situation worse. Presumably, the veteran Gabriel would have been able to squeeze more out of the offense. (It’s also quite probable that Gabriel — wily vet  that he was — saw some of the struggles coming and sought a place better set up to succeed in 2024.)

Another example of this in 2024 was Kansas State. The Wildcats let Will Howard walk in favor of Kansas native Avery Johnson. There were obvious political and recruiting reasons for this decision, but it got second-guessed plenty as Howard helped Ohio State win a national title and Johnson had a decent-but-not-great season in Manhattan.

Texas will be breaking in a mostly new offensive line in 2025, but the talent level on the roster isn’t in question like it was at Oklahoma last year. Manning will walk into a much better situation than Arnold did last year.

I also think the last few months would have played out differently if Texas coach Steve Sarkisian didn’t think Manning could at least equal Ewers’ production. As important as having the next Manning on the roster might be for a school, winning is much more important at Texas. If there was any concern of a drop-off, my guess is the staff would have asked Ewers to stay another year and let Manning find another place to play. 

Still, Brian’s question got me thinking about another SEC program where something similar played out this winter. It sure seems as if Carson Beck starting at Georgia in 2025 wasn’t a possibility even though Beck still had eligibility remaining.

Remember, Beck originally decided to enter the draft. But when it became clear Miami needed a QB — and was willing to pay top dollar — Beck headed to Coral Gables.

This is all complicated by the elbow injury Beck suffered in the SEC title game, but if Beck had any inkling that he might still want to play in college, was Georgia even a possibility? Or had Bulldogs’ coaches moved on to Gunner Stockton from the Sugar Bowl forward?

That’s the issue with most of these situations. It’s rarely as simple as the coaches merely choosing one QB over another. There are always complicating factors. But no matter what, the second-guessing will come if the player in the role isn’t performing as well as the fanbase thinks the player who had the role would have been.

From Billy:
I’m writing to discuss and push back on something Ari said earlier this week in response to the idea that Quinn Ewers is one of the greatest misevaluations in recruiting history. Let me say first, that I have nothing personal against the kid, he was a very good college football player, and he should have nothing to regret about his career. However, given both the standards of the recruiting five-star system, AND Ari’s own feelings about it vis a vis “stars matter,” I think there’s certainly an argument that he WAS misevaluated.

By the standards of the star system, a five-star prospect IS considered a future first-round pick. That’s why there are only 32 in a given cycle. Not only was Ewers a five-star, he was the No. 1 player overall in his class, and written about at the time as one of the best high school quarterback prospects ever. For him to only be a seventh round pick a few years later without any major injuries would suggest that none of those things were true, and he was a pretty significant misevaluation, would it not? 

Now, again, that’s not to kick Ewers while he’s down, but I think it raises a more interesting question about the nature of recruiting rankings and the flaws in the system. Broadly, I agree that stars do matter. But are there really 32 future first-round picks every year? Obviously there have to be from the NFL’s perspective, but most scouts would tell you different years have different levels of true premium talents. It might do On3 or other services well to take a more holistic approach to how these rankings are done — some years, maybe only 10 or 15 kids truly deserve that fifth star. You’re never going to perfect talent evaluation, but it’s the offseason, and I think it makes for a fun topic.

This is a great question. We discussed it at length on Thursday’s show, and then I sought some additional perspective from On3 national scout Cody Bellaire. The number of five-stars has been tied to the number of picks in the first round since before On3 existed, so this is a legitimate discussion point. But it’s also not a requirement. The On3 Industry ranking — a composite of the On3, 247 Sports, Rivals and ESPN rankings — ranks 32 five-stars to parallel the draft. But On3’s current 2026 rankings only have seven players listed as five-star recruits. Only one of those, Texas commit Dia Bell, is a quarterback.

Beyond the star-rankings themselves is a bigger question. Are we as the Recruiting Industrial Complex evaluating the most important factors when it comes to quarterback success in college and beyond? 

The first and most obvious issue to point out is that quarterback evaluation is difficult whether a player is moving from high school to college or college to the NFL. The sport is littered with five-star QB recruits who never became effective college starters and first-round QBs who bombed out of the NFL. Predicting that position in particular is the most imperfect part of an imperfect science. 

It also may not be wise on our part — at least with the quarterback position — to bake in an NFL future component to QB evaluation since the primary purpose of recruiting rankings is to predict success in college. The skills required to be successful in the NFL create a vastly smaller pool of players than the pool that can be successful in college. In the NFL, above-average arm strength is paramount. The windows QBs must throw into are simply too tight, whereas in college a weaker-armed QB can get away with more because his receivers are just more open. One of the biggest knocks against Ewers in the NFL evaluation process was arm strength. But based on his college career, his arm strength was perfectly adequate to be successful at a major program. So was that a failure of evaluation or a case of evaluating for the level Ewers was heading to immediately after high school?

The college game also allows coaches to mask any processing deficiencies a QB might have. Players can be schemed open, and decisions can be reduced to simple if-then scenarios. The schematic variance and overall skill level in the NFL makes that impossible. QBs must be able to process information quickly, or they stand no chance. The evaluation of high schoolers can’t go as in-depth as the evaluation of college players, so often the answer to the processing question remains a mystery until the player becomes a college starter.

Bellaire reminded me that changes in the NFL game have also changed long-term projections for prospects. Prior to 2012, a QB shorter than 6-foot-2 and lighter than 210 pounds probably wasn’t going to be projected as a potential NFL starter. But then Russell Wilson reached the NFL and showed that perhaps a smaller QB with a good arm, excellent processing ability and a dash of mobility could be just as effective as a giant with a bazooka. By the time Bryce Young became a blue-chip recruit in the late 2010s, it was sensible to project him as an NFL player. Ten years earlier, it would have been foolish.

Bellaire also pointed out that the NFL success of Josh Allen has convinced coaches at that level that a truly raw QB with great traits can be refined. This is what got Anthony Richardson picked fourth overall. This is why Joe Milton probably will draw a football paycheck longer than his on-field success suggests he should. 

In other words, what the NFL wants in a QB is constantly evolving. What GMs prefer may change between now and the 2029 draft, when the first members of the QB class of 2026 head to the NFL.

Should our ranking process reserve the five-star QB designation only for players who absolutely demonstrate the physical characteristics required to be NFL first-rounder? I lean toward no, because the target audience remains college football fans who want to know how the player might perform in college. Also, I’m not sure it would make the rankings more accurate. Quarterback evaluation is crapshoot, and it probably always will be. 

A Random Ranking

From Justin: Who do you cast as Bill Belichick in the Lifetime movie?

This question stemmed from a tweet I sent Wednesday as the Bill Belichick-Jordon Hudson story continued to get even more interesting. Specifically, one detail from a New York Post story caught my eye.

Excuse me? I feel like this paragraph requires more elaboration.

The Lifetime movie of this entire saga is going to be 🔥🔥🔥🔥. https://t.co/lMKi0kdoNM pic.twitter.com/7wQhucl5N4

— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) May 1, 2025

No matter how this story ends — happily ever after or a giant mess — we’re getting a Lifetime movie out of the deal. Since the law requires that Lacey Chabert be cast in all of these movies, my initial thought was that she would play Hudson. But Chabert is 42, so she probably will have to play Hudson’s mom, dishing out sage advice every time our hero stops by the sex toy museum to visit.

Here are my top five choices to play Belichick in what almost assuredly will be a cinematic masterpiece.

1. Tommy Lee Jones: The former Harvard offensive lineman is age appropriate (78) and already has the look. He’d have snip his Texas twang to sound like a coach raised in the mid-Atlantic region, but Jones could pull it off.

2. Tom Hanks: Hanks, 68, hasn’’t really gotten a chance to play a curmudgeon. But this would be a chance to show off his range.

3. Brad Pitt: Don’t laugh. The movies routinely hire someone a little younger and a lot sexier to play the protagonist. Pitt is 61 — you felt old reading that, didn’t you? — and would sink his teeth into this role like his Ocean’s 11 character Rusty sank his teeth into a snack in practically every scene.

4. Harrison Ford: Han Solo. Indiana Jones. Jack Ryan. Bill Belichick. With 1923 wrapped, Ford needs something to do.

5. Norbert Leo Butz: The Broadway actor already played Belichick in an Aaron Hernandez-related miniseries. Now he could play him in a rom-com.