Arch Manning's apology to Holly Rowe should be just the beginning of a college football reckoning

The last 72 hours or so should have been a celebratory time for Texas football, now ranked No. 1 in the country after that dramatic fourth-quarter comeback against Ohio State. Instead, the face of the program and one of the most famous football players in the country decided to treat domestic violence as a punchline — and far, far too many people are happy to pat him on the back for it.

The controversy began with Manning's head coach, Steve Sarkisian, who abruptly cut short Holly Rowe's attempt at a postgame interview on Saturday night. Rowe had barely gotten started asking her first question when Sarkisian barked "Texas fight, hook 'em!" before walking away to join the celebration on the field.

It wasn't the best look; you'd like to think that your head coach, the leader of your football program and one of the faces of your university who's talked a big game in the past about setting an example for the young men in his charge, would be able to take a breath in the moment and treat a reporter with a bit more respect. But things took a truly dark turn from there, with an AI-generated video in which Sarkisian punctuates his remarks by backhanding Rowe across the face.

The video made the rounds online in the hours after Texas' win, and it apparently reached Manning himself. "Have you all seen that one?" Arch asked a room of reporters. "That's a good one. Of [Sarkisian] slapping Holly Rowe. It's hilarious." 

Manning, to his credit, offered what appeared to be a sincere apology on Tuesday afternoon, even if it was posted to Instagram Stories for some reason. Rowe accepted, adding that the two had a private conversation and that she was now looking to move forward.

But moving forward is sort of the problem. This is hardly the first time that violence against women has been minimized in the world of college sports, and football in particular. And while Manning did the right thing with his apology, this can't be an excuse for everyone to sweep this incident under the rug.

Arch Manning's apology to Holly Rowe can't just be another attempt to save face and move on

As distressing as Manning's own comments were the lengths plenty of people were willing to go to defend them. Some let Manning off the hook by arguing that the video was clearly meant as a joke. Others did so by appealing to the fact that he's a 22-year-old college student. Neither argument is remotely compelling.

What, exactly, is the joke in that video supposed to be? Because from here, the only plausible answer seems to be that certain people — read: certain men — just get a kick out of watching a man exert power over a woman. It's striking in its directness: There's no attempt to couch the violence in irony or give the audience space to shrug it off. It's just Sarkisian backhanding Rowe, presented as though it's inherently comedic.

I've obviously never met Manning, and I have no idea who he is as a person. But the idea that he shouldn't be held accountable for his public comments, given the platform he has and the money he makes as the quarterback at Texas, is ridiculous on its face. If Manning is old enough to enjoy the fruits of his celebrity, he's absolutely old enough to know that his actions and words have consequences, and that what he says and does matters.

No one is calling for his expulsion. No one is condemning his character for all eternity. But if you're a public figure who openly laughs at the idea of your head coach slapping a female reporter, you're going to have to answer for that. Manning's apology was a good start, but there needs to be more in order to make it clear that he knows he made a mistake — to hopefully communicate to the many, many young men who look up to him that women deserve to be treated with equal respect and that violence against them is a disease that needs to be pulled up at the root.

Don't let Steve Sarkisian off the hook for his role in Holly Rowe AI video controversy

It's also worth unpacking Sarkisian's role in all of this. No, he didn't make the video in question, nor has he commented on it in any way. But why, exactly, do you think it was so easy for someone to make the leap from Sark's actual comments to a depiction of violence against women?

Whether Sarkisian intended it or not — and I'm open to the idea that he was simply amped up after an improbable victory — the subtext of his behavior toward Rowe was one of disrespect and dismissal. It's no surprise, then, that misogynists all over the internet decided to take it a few steps further for a laugh.

Sarkisian bears some responsibility for that, and he too owes Rowe an apology — both for his initial remarks and for the permission structure they created. It's clear that we still have a very long way to go for women in sports to be treated with dignity. That job falls on everybody who has a hand in building this culture, Sark very much included.

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