How Texas QB Arch Manning dealt with not playing as a freshman

Former special assistant to the head coach Paul Chryst was a critical sounding board for the young quarterback.

When now-redshirt sophomore Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning arrived on the Forty Acres in early 2023 as the nation’s No. 1 prospect, he was used to playing, having started all four years at New Orleans (La.) Isidore Newman.

“I don’t know if that’s a flex because we were 2A,” Manning joked at SEC Media Days in Atlanta this week. “Freshman year was tough — I didn’t deserve to play, but I wasn’t used to not playing.”

So Manning needed a sounding board to deal with those frustrations. He’d started to develop a habit of acting like he was talking on the phone to his mom while walking across campus to in an effort to deflect some attention, but it was special assistant to the head coach Paul Chryst that Manning turned to in order to aid his adjustment period to being a backup.

A coaching veteran of more than 30 years who spent a decade as the head coach at Pittsburg and Wisconsin, Chryst became Manning’s mentor at Texas, part coach and part psychologist.

“I was going into his office, we’d watch film, and it was like an hour of watching film and an hour of me venting,” Manning said. “Always grateful for him — I still keep in touch with him. He’s a great guy. He’s just such a good, patient guy.”

Chryst’s advice? Stay patient, keep working.

Manning also turned to another outlet — playing pickup basketball to “keep the competitive feel.”

At Newman, Manning played three years of varsity basketball, including winning a state championship as a junior.

At Teas, those pickup basketball games helped Manning develop a relationship with his starting left tackle, junior Trevor Goosby, a basketball standout at Melissa.

“I can’t get up there like him,” Manning said of Goosby in a radio appearance this week. “We played a little in the offseason. He’s the real deal, like shooting threes and everything.”

That is, perhaps, a little bit of modesty from Manning about Goosby’s superior dunking ability — one of his many viral moments was a video throwing down a windmill dunk.

Basketball remains a critical enough outlet for Manning that he asked new basketball head coach Sean Miller for access to the Moody Center for pickup games. Miller’s only stipulation? That Manning doesn’t hurt himself on the hardwood.

Despite having to wait behind Quinn Ewers for two years, an anomaly for quarterbacks in the modern era of college football, Manning never considered transferring despite the difficult adjustment period in 2023.

“No, that never really crossed my mind. I knew Texas was the place I wanted to be,” Manning said. “It was the city I wanted to be in, a great education. I had friends there. I was still developing and growing as a football player and as a person. So I never really wanted to leave. If there was somewhere else I wanted to be, I would have gone.”