Longtime ESPN writers Marty Smith and Ryan McGee expressed secondhand embarrassment toward the New York Times/Athletic’s piece addressing disappointment in Texas junior quarterback Arch Manning.
While the expectations of Manning’s superstardom come from his last name, he’s shown more normalcy than magic as the Longhorns’ full-time starter.
Manning has completed 81-of-135 passes for 1,151 yards, 11 touchdowns and five interceptions, but it’s a 3-2 record and lack of torching SEC defenses that brought an egregious story from a respected that united a nation against them.
The humble, 6-foot-4, 219 pound passer hasn’t lived up to unimaginable hype coming out of high school in New Orleans. Considered a generational type of talent as the No. 1 athlete in America, he is far from being a bust, flop or what-if.
Even the athlete himself warned his own fanbase, local and national media t pump the brakes on his own hype because he had yet to prove anything.
“I’m not really sure how they get these opinions because I’ve only played, what, two games,” Manning said at SEC Media Days. “That’s nice of them to say, but that doesn’t mean anything. Talk is cheap, I gotta go prove it.”
In a segment during Saturday morning’s Marty & McGee show on SEC Network, the long-time duo called out The Athletic’s story for its shortsightedness.
“With how many NIL deals that arch Manning has just opposed to the performance that he’s displayed on the football field through seven games as the starter of the University of Texas to say that he’s a flop to say that he synonymous with failure after seven starts it’s an embarrassment,” Smith said.
“It’s an embarrassment to be honest with you and so my advice to the person that wrote that piece is maybe you should take Arch’s advice in one of those NIL deals and go buy some Warby Parker glasses, put them on and actually watch the football games because maybe he hasn’t lived up to the hype.
Manning was named a Heisman front runner for a Texas team that was coming off a College Football Playoff semifinal run was ranked No. 1 by the AP Top 25 poll.
“He hasn’t lived up to the hype,” Smith said. “But he also didn’t manufacture the height he inherited his last name hit it. We made the hype. The hype is on the media so watch the games and I guarantee you he’s gonna continue continue to improve. I just think that the piece was bad.”
Rm: you’ve said it all year which is you have said we the media and I was always reluctant to slump you and we like y’all we’re not there was definitely hype into it and we warned about that going into the year.
McGee cautioned media and college football fans during the offseason that his production didn’t warrant all the talk about him being the next big thing.
“I said 100 times ‘he’s done less than 100 collegiate passes.’ You know he’d really need any starts and any starts against the top competition,” McGee said. “I will say this, Arch Manning can handle this.
“The same last name he has that brings this criticism is also an infrastructure of support that no one else has. Everyone else is going through.”
There have been naysayers against the Manning family for a number of decades whether that be Archie’s issues against Alabama or not living up to his hype in the NFL.
How about the great regular season performances by Peyton, but going without a Heisman Trophy and national championship himself in college?
All the MVP performances by the eldest son only to fall short of the Super Bowl until his ninth season in the NFL.
“I will give credit to the story for one thing, nothing ever unites a nation anymore but this story united the nation because everybody hated,” McGee said. “With the fact that we’re even talking about it because us talking about it offers it relevance, but our job in this business is to be fair and accurate and that pieces neither and so I felt like it was important for us to address it.”
Not all of college football’s biggest stars find immediate success in the NFL either, which is why Smith and McGee continuously caution fans to take a step back, get a breath of fresh air and touch grass.
“If you look at the stars in the NFL right now after seven starts, Lamar Jackson was a running back who couldn’t stretch the field. Joe Burrow was a game manager. Josh Allen, we hadn’t even even heard his name,” Smith said. “It’s seven games, there was so much hype it was outrageous.
“I remember saying to Paul [Finebaum] back in the summer, it would be the most hype train we’ve seen since Tim Tebow and that’s what happened and again he didn’t manufacture the hype. I’ve actually sat across from him. He’s too humble for his own good in some ways and so let’s just have patience.
“It’s something in today’s world that we don’t have, and if he was the kid standing on the pedestal going on the greatest quarterback of all time, I’m gonna be the greatest man of all time, you guys buy that bow down to me on God‘s gift the narrative would be different, but that’s not what happened. He’s so humble just let’s be patient before we judge it.”
While Arch is an interesting experiment in an everchanging world of college football, it might be a time to reflect and understand that just because these college athletes are being paid, doesn’t mean they deserve such critique.
“This is just how it works, so Arch is gonna be fun,” McGee said. “But it is an interesting sociology experiment right now as we are still moving into this new professional world of college athletes on billboards and TV commercials and everything else.”
About the Author
