Steve Sarkisian leaves door open for Arch Manning in 2024

During SEC Media Days in Dallas, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian addressed the elephant in the room while at the podium. Quinn Ewers is the starting quarterback for this team, but Arch Manning's potential may be too good to keep riding pine throughout. Ewers is the better player right now, but this will be his last season of college football. Of course, he is undeniably injury-prone as a player.

It is why Sarkisian said it out loud that "we're probably going to need both those guys at some point this season" during Wednesday's meetings with the college football media. Sarkisian is absolutely right. Texas cannot rely on Ewers to play a full season. He was unable to do that the last two years, allowing opportunities for guys like Hudson Card and Maalik Murphy to show us all what they got.

The goods news is Sarkisian loves his quarterback room, one where Manning and Ewers are buds.

"These guys are great, great friends. Nobody gets along better. There's a real level of appreciation for what each guy is doing. Because they know the journey, they know the path, they know how we coach him. From Arch's perspective, he's watching Quinn have to go through some of the adversity, having a fight through injury, having to deal with the criticism of being the quarterback of Texas, so to see him have success, I think Arch is fired up for Quinn."

He then went on to mention how Ewers seems to respect Manning's so-called journey of sorts.

"On the flip side, I think Quinn recognizes Arch's journey year one in our system and what that's like. If you go back to the spring game Arch's true freshman year, what that looked like, and then to see how he played Year 2 in the system, there's great appreciation from Quinn for what Arch is doing. So in the end, we're probably going to need both those guys at some point this season."

Lastly, Sarkisian credited Texas quarterbacks coach A.J. Milwee for being a key bridge in all of this.

"We're really fortunate to have that room and the quality of people in that room, and that's a credit to Coach Milwee to bridge that gap to bring two guys together to pull for one another. They're great teammates; they both just want to win. They both want to be really successful, and I think they do appreciate the journey that each guy's on come on."

For my money, if Texas plays in 16 games this season, Ewers will play in 12 of them. Manning will start.

Steve Sarkisian opens door for Arch Manning to play a lot more in 2024

What I have seen over the last few years is the offensive minds of Milwee and Sarkisian make things easier for their quarterbacks across the board. When Ewers went down, Card took advantage of his opportunity in 2022. This helped him become the starting quarterback at Purdue last year. Murphy did similar things last year at Texas, parlaying that into a starting role with Manny Diaz's Duke team.

What is important to understand here is Texas is going to be left with no choice but to have Manning ready to rock Week 1. This is because we have no earthly idea when Ewers is going to get hurt again, but that it is bound to happen at some point. Nobody will be a bigger cheerleader for Manning when he is out there than Ewers, but you have to wonder if this hurts Texas' ceiling as a title contender.

As many in the college football world, I have Texas playing Georgia in the SEC Championship Game, only to lose to the Dawgs in Atlanta and get something like the No. 5 or No. 6 seed in the expanded College Football Playoff. I have them as a final four team, but I do wonder about the consistency under center at quarterback for Texas. There is a ton of talent in the room, but the field is different.

If you don't think Manning is going to play for Texas this season, you are out of your mind, brother.