Diagnosing What’s Really Wrong With Texas’ Arch Manning, And Can He Fix It?

There is something clearly off with Arch Manning.

The Texas quarterback has yet to live up to the hype so far this season. He has completed just 55.3% of his passes for 579 yards, six touchdowns and three interceptions to go with 112 rushing yards and three rushing scores through three starts. However, when you watch Manning play, he’s played pretty poorly and nothing has looked solid. 

Manning’s issues are very different from the issues Clemson’s Cade Klubnik and South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers are dealing with because they aren’t holistic. That Texas offense has quality wide receivers and running backs with a good offensive line. 

Has that group played its best football around Manning? Probably not. Still, this is an Arch-specific issue with Texas’ offense. Manning threw 10 straight incompletions against UTEP. His completion percentage is the second-worst in the SEC. But when you account for throws that actually go past the line of scrimmage, he’s completing just 46% of his passes.

So, I went back and watched every throw Manning made against UTEP to try and diagnose the problem. Just to preface this, when I watch a young quarterback, there are a few things I look for. One of them is to see if the speed of the game is impacting his play. That looks to be the case for Manning. Even with the games he started last year, it didn’t really translate to him being comfortable.

Facing a defense as good as Ohio State’s didn’t do Manning a lot of good in that regard, but he’s still clearly not comfortable. When the game is moving too fast for young quarterbacks, they either speed themselves up too fast, where they’re ahead of the timing of the offense or they’re so slow that they’re behind the timing of the offense. Bill Walsh used to say timing plus spacing equals completions, while timing plus ball placement equals yards after the catch. Those great San Francisco 49ers teams lived by that and the timing of the quarterback.

Steve Sarkisian’s offense is an offshoot of that. Texas’ offense is held in the feet of the quarterback, so if the quarterback is rushing, that’s no good. If it’s behind, that’s no good. It has to marry up, like a puzzle. If the wide receivers aren’t providing the picture for the quarterback in their route concepts or the quarterback isn’t on the right timing, you don’t get completions. 

After watching Manning’s tape against UTEP, he’s the problem with the equation. He’s moving too fast. Maybe not on every single play, but on several. He gets back there and has time to throw, but before the picture develops with the wide receivers’ routes, you can tell his eyes are shifting from the first place he’s looking to the second place he’s looking. He’s essentially going from his first read to the second read before the picture develops.

When that happens, quarterbacks typically lose their balance, pocket presence and their eyes go down because they’re anticipating that the clock is moving too fast. Because of that, the pocket awareness crumbles, quarterbacks miss wide open wide receivers and when they do throw the football, it’s usually short of the intended target. 

Arch Manning and Texas were only able to put up seven points in its season-opening loss to Ohio State. 

The bulk of Manning’s incompletions are underthrown balls. A couple of them were woefully underthrown when you go back to that game against Ohio State. Even when he’s trying to throw quick hitters on the outside, they’re too far low and away. Everything is trending down and away from the wide receivers. Very few passes have been in rhythm, in balance and in the frame of the wide receiver.

Can it be fixed? Yes, but he’s got to play better. If it doesn’t get fixed, I’m going to start to wonder if he’s healthy because the arm angles on his throws have been way too short at times. But remember, your arm can get short if your feet are moving too fast. So, I don’t want to jump to any conclusions about his health when I think it’s a timing issue. 

At some point, I have a sense that the timing will click for Manning and Texas’ offense. In fact, I think their struggles are more fixable than the ones we’ve seen with Klubnik at Clemson, DJ Lagway at Florida or Sellers at South Carolina. Those are harder to fix than just trying to resolve a piece of the equation. 

If Manning can get himself in rhythm, the completions will come. We see it a few times per game, typically off play action, when you see his feet under him and he can deliver a strike. It’s just not there when he’s in drop-back or trying to throw in the RPO game.

Sometimes, with young players, all it takes is a series for them to figure out their rhythm and how paramount it is to the quality of the team’s play. Once Manning understands that, I think he and Texas will take off.   

Joel Klatt is FOX Sports’ lead college football game analyst and the host of the podcast “The Joel Klatt Show.” Follow him at @joelklatt and subscribe to the “Joel Klatt Show” on YouTube.

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