Quinn Ewers Officially OUT; Arch Manning to Start For Texas vs. Mississippi State

The Texas Longhorns are expected to start Arch Manning at quarterback for the SEC opener vs. Mississippi State.

Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning (16) advances the ball as the Texas Longhorns take on ULM at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024. / Mikala Compton/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

AUSTIN - The Texas Longhorns will run it back with Arch Manning.

According to ESPN college football insider Pete Thamel, Texas is in line to start the red-shirt freshman Manning for the second consecutive week on Saturday when the Longhorns host the Mississippi State Bulldogs in Austin. Quinn Ewers is set to miss his second straight game due to injury.

Then shortly after before kickoff, the news became officially, with Manning set to get the start and Ewers officially out.

Manning got the start over Ewers last week due to an abdominal strain he suffered in the Longhorns 56-7 win over UTSA in Week 3.

In each of the last two weeks since the injury, Ewers has been listed as questionable, with his status being monitored every practice. However, while Ewers did return to throwing this week, he was not quite ready to take on a full load, according to Texas coach Steve Sarkisian.

In relief of Ewers, Manning has been electric at times, recording five touchdowns vs. UTSA, and adding two passing touchdowns vs. Louisiana-Monroe on his way to leading the Horns to 86 total points while under center.

He has also been very obviously a freshman at times as well, making a handful of mistakes that, against SEC competition, could have put the Horns in a bad spot.

Manning made a handful of bad choices against the Roadrunners, chiefly taking a bad sack and nearly throwing a pick, but got away with both mistakes. Against ULM he wasn't so lucky, throwing two interceptions and making a few other questionable decisions.

Manning himself gave himself a C-plus for his performance, while Sarkisian described him as getting "greedy" with his decision-making, instead of taking the easy and safer play on numerous occasions.

"Learning lessons, right? To think he was going to come out and play a perfect game, I don't think anybody in here thought that," Sarkisian said. "He was going to have some lessons learned and I think that's what tonight was about."

That said, it was Manning's first start under center, and he will learn from those mistakes and grow.

As for Ewers, it comes as no surprise that the Horns are playing it safe on his injury front.

With Mississippi State struggling mightily on both sides of the ball, and a bye week before their trip to Dallas to face Oklahoma, there is no reason to push him onto the field too early, and risk re-aggravating the injury.

Before the injury, Ewers was playing at a Heisman-caliber level, completing 73.4 percent of his passes for 691 yards and eight touchdowns with two interceptions over nine quarters of football.

And once healthy, Sarkisian believes he still every opportunity to earn those honors, and more.

"With some of the games that we have coming up down the road, (Ewers) is gonna be in New York for the Heisman, whether he wins it or not, but he has the ability to do that," Sarkisian said. "I think he has the ability to be a top-five NFL Draft Pick. All of the things that I think he is capable of are still out there for him. Him not playing in this game Saturday is not gonna impact those three things that I know are goals that we've set for him and that he's working towards."

No. 1 Texas and Mississippi State kick off at 3:15 pm CT on SEC Network.