Kirk Herbstreit honors Arch Manning with major college football award

While giving out his annual college football awards to end the season, Kirk Herbstreit sang the praises of Arch Manning for his performance down the stretch

ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit at a Texas Longhorns game | Brett Davis-Imagn Images

The 2025 college football regular season is over and the time is now for ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit to hand out his personal awards for the year ahead of what's sure to be an entertaining postseason. He calls them the Herbie Awards, which are given out to worthy somebodies across various categories.

For instance, you can go read who Herbstreit selected as his Offensive Player of the Year right here. But one of the awards Herbstreit came up with was called the Redemption Player of the Year, which he said is intended to award a guy who bounced back from an injury, a poor season the year before, or even someone who showed extraordinary growth from Week 1 to Week 14.

He nominated three players for the honor: Texas quarterback Arch Manning, Alabama linebacker Deonte Lawson, and Notre Dame defensive end Boubacar Traore. As you should already know, Herbstreit opted to give the Redemption Player of the Year honor to the most famous name in college football, Arch Manning, for navigating a difficult year into a very positive finish for he and the Longhorn program.

"I think he came in with unrealistic expectations," Herbstreit said of the Texas QB. "When this season started, people were talking about, 'He's going to win the Heisman Trophy. He’s better than Payton. He’s better than Eli. He’s better than his grandpa. He’s going to win a national championship. It’ll be the first pick next year in the draft.'"

Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning throws a pass | Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

Obviously, the season didn't turn out that rosy. For Herbstreit, it was seeing Manning undergo the ego hit and the piling on of critics but still turn his season around to finish so strong that impressed him so much.

"When that didn’t pan out in the first half of the season, people were very, very critical," Herbstreit continued. To his credit, he blocked all of that out. Didn’t take any of it personally. If anything, I think it motivated him to go out and help his teammates win games. And I was really happy for him enduring that and coming out on the other side."

In his first year as the full-time starter, Manning finished with just under 3,000 total passing yards while guiding Texas to a solid 9-3 season given the harsh schedule they were saddled with. After some early-season offensive struggles and two losses in their first five games, Manning and the Longhorn offense hit a groove as the Longhorns won six of their last seven.

Across Texas' final five games, Arch Manning threw for 300+ yards in three wins against Mississippi State, Arkansas and Vanderbilt, and then led a 27-point outing and scored two touchdowns, one passing and one rushing, to lead Texas over rival Texas A&M.