AUSTIN, Texas — “How is Arch Manning going to handle fame,” Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian was asked during the spring.
“The boos? The boos? Because the boos are going to come here pretty soon, too,” Sarkisian said. “I love our fans — they love the backup quarterback, but they hate interceptions. So those are coming.”
Those boos starting raining down from the stands at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in the midst of a shockingly inept offensive performance by Sarkisian’s Longhorns
and redshirt freshman quarterback Arch Manning.
A late touchdown scramble by Manning allowed Texas to head into halftime leading 14-3 over UTEP, an underdog by more than 40 points entering the game, according to FanDuel.
But Manning was often atrocious, finishing the opening 30 minutes 5-of-16 passing for 69 yards (31 percent) and a red-zone interception thrown late and across his body into the end zone. As Sarkisian struggled to find ways to scheme up completions for Manning, the much-hyped Texas quarterback threw 10 straight incompletions with many of the throws not even coming close to the intended target.
On the SEC Network, Sarkisian responded to his quarterback’s abysmal first-half performance.
“I told Arch before the season, you’ve never really been a QB until they boo ya,” Sarkisian said. “He got booed in the first half. Now he can start playing.”
