Arch Manning's offseason improvement: 'Letting the offense come to me'

By all accounts, Arch Manning had as progressive and productive a freshman season as one could hope for ... for a player who rarely saw the field. That doesn't mean Manning didn't sense a need for improvement in a critical area, though it likely isn't one that would immediately stick out for most who saw him in action.

As Manning told Bayou Time Sports from HTV news in Louisiana, he feels the area in which he has made the most progress comes from accepting what he can achieve against opposing defenses.

In case you can't watch the video above, here's the critical quote from Manning:

"I think for me, not trying to make too many plays on my own. Letting the offense come to me, getting the ball in the playmaker's hands, and trying to get better each day."

Taking what the defense gives you is the very hallmark of a savvy veteran quarterback. It's the kind of lesson that current Texas starting quarterback Quinn Ewers had to learn on the fly (sometimes painfully so) during his freshman season in 2023.

Manning also said he continues to take advantage of the availability of his uncles as critical sounding boards to fast track his development; the Texas quarterback said he spent multiple hours throwing with uncle Peyton Manning in recent weeks, and that both are essentially on call for any questions that arise for him in the moment.

"They're full of knowledge," Manning told Bayou Time Sports . "I ask them all the time about stuff; what they think about certain drills, certain looks, defensive looks. It's nice to have that resource."

If Manning is indeed learning to lean more on the elite playmakers the Longhorns have surrounded him with, all while continuing to lean on his substantial base of generational quarterback knowledge, the future should be truly bright for he and his teammates in the seasons ahead.