$5.4 Million QB Expected to Play for National Title With College Football Powerhouse

The spring football season offers a month-long period of entertainment for fans during the long wait for the college football regular season.

Spring football presents an opportunity for programs to get a look at their new acquisitions from the high school recruiting and NCAA transfer portal cycles. It also presents an opportunity for returning players to show signs they are ready to take a leap forward in the upcoming season.

One player who hopes to take that leap in 2026 is Texas starting quarterback Arch Manning. The Longhorns are coming off a 10-3 campaign in 2025 that featured a surge in the later months of the season.

The 6-foot-4, 219-pounder ranked as a five-star prospect and the No. 1 overall player in the 2023 recruiting cycle, per 247Sports. Manning barely saw the field in 2023 and was utilized sparingly in run packages during the 2024 season, although an injury to Quinn Ewers early in the 2024 season gave him the opportunity to start against ULM and Mississippi State.

Arch Manning during Texas' 2024 game against Mississippi State. — Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning (16) runs the ball in the second half against the Mississippi State Bulldogs | Daniel Dunn-Imagn Images

Manning encountered some bumps in the road in his first season as the Longhorns' starter. Losses at Ohio State and at Florida had Texas sitting at 3-2 in early October.

However, the Longhorns won seven of their last eight games, a stretch that featured four top 25 wins. Manning finished 2025 with 3,163 passing yards, 26 touchdowns and seven interceptions to go with 399 rush yards and 10 more touchdowns.

The Longhorns brought in proven commodities such as running backs Hollywood Smothers (NC State) and Raleek Brown (Arizona State), and wide receiver Cam Coleman (Auburn) from the portal to upgrade their offense from a year ago. J.D. PicKell of On3 discussed how these acquisitions should have the Longhorns playing for a national championship on a recent edition of "The Hard Count."

"All of the ingredients are there. This is something during spring ball that we're going to get a pretty good gauge on of 'Hey, Arch looks different right now.' Yes, he's always been talented, we were hearing that last spring," PicKell said.

"Similar to what we said about Marcel Reed, similar thing to what we said we want to hear out of spring ball from Miami with Darian Mensah, you just get a really good gauge during spring practice of how special a year a quarterback is going to have."

How conducive is Texas' schedule to a national championship run?

Every SEC team's schedule became more difficult with the elimination of the fourth non-conference game for a ninth SEC game. Texas' non-conference schedule is headlined by the home end of its home-and-home with Ohio State. Texas State and UTSA are its other non-conference foes.

The Longhorns face three more College Football Playoff participants from a season ago in Oklahoma, Ole Miss and Texas A&M, although they defeated two of three last season. Florida, Mississippi State and Arkansas are the teams to finish with losing records in 2025 on their SEC slate, all of which they will play at home.