This is the Arch Manning Texas has been waiting for all season.
For the second week in a row, Manning stepped up to lead the No. 11 Longhorns to a crucial SEC win to stay afloat in the College Football Playoff race.
He completed 28 of 38 attempts for 297 yards and three touchdowns without a turnover in a 34-20 win against No. 19 Missouri, tossing the go-ahead score just over five minutes remaining.
Manning outplayed Missouri senior Austin Simmons, who started strong in leading the Tigers to a pair of scoring drives in the first quarter but finished with just 23 completions in 43 attempts for 252 yards.
For Manning, this performance comes after he completed 16 of 20 throws for 220 yards and three touchdowns last Saturday in a 31-3 victory against
Mississippi State. These past two games have seen the often embattled second-year starter up his game in response to the increased stakes of this crucial home stretch of the regular season.
The win against Missouri came without wide receiver Cam Coleman, the team leader heading into the weekend in yards per catch and touchdowns. Coleman was ruled out shortly before kickoff with a shoulder injury. While the former Auburn transfer hasn’t delivered as consistently as Texas hoped, his absence led to a more balanced passing game.
Eight receivers made at least one catch and four had at least four grabs, led by Emmett Mosley’s five receptions for a game-high 85 yards.
The rising level of Manning’s play the past two weeks should change the way Texas is viewed in the race for the national championship. Too often this season, the Longhorns have been stymied by his inability to avoid the type of missteps that contributed to losses against Oklahoma and Florida.
Winning on the road against a ranked opponent illustrates some key in-season growth. Before Saturday, Texas had played away from home twice: in a 20-17 win against Tennessee and in the loss to the Sooners. In those matchups, Manning completed a combined 33 of 50 passes for 461 yards with three touchdowns and three interceptions.
That Manning has proven he can deliver on the road changes the outlook for Texas heading into additional November road games against No. 15 LSU and rival Texas A&M. Even more importantly, the win at Missouri might have given Texas the wiggle room in the playoff chase to lose once more this month and still land an at-large berth.
But the Longhorns are hoping for more than that; the goal since the start of the offseason has been to not just make the playoff but deliver the program’s first national championship in over two decades.
That goal seemed well out of reach after the back-to-back losses to Oklahoma and Florida. About a month later, Manning’s improvement makes this vision of a national championship much easier to imagine.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Arch Manning golden as Texas gets huge CFP boost in win at Missouri
