College Football's Top 25 Most Important Players: No. 4 QB Arch Manning, Texas

He was the best quarterback in the SEC over the final two months of 2025 and almost nobody will say it, because the flop story had already been written

Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning (16) on the field for warm-ups before the college football game against Ohio State | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Texas is about to find out whether the most scrutinized player in college football was misjudged by nearly everyone for an entire season because the data says he was.

Arch Manning's receivers dropped 17 of his passes in the second half of 2025, the third-most in the nation. Remove those drops, and his adjusted completion rate in that stretch was 75.3%, a figure that would have ranked 26th among qualifying passers, and there's still more room for improvement.

Texas read the same data and acted on it. The Longhorns let two starting wideouts leave through the portal, signed the No. 1 transfer in the country to replace them and kept the quarterback everyone else wanted to bury.

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No. 4: Arch Manning, QB, Texas Longhorns

The argument for Manning at No. 4 is simple.

If his final eight games of 2025 were the real version of him, Texas is a national title contender and he is the favorite to go No. 1 overall in the 2027 NFL draft.

If his first five games were the real version, the sport's most expensive roster wasted its last season with him. No other player in America carries a gap that wide between his two possible outcomes.

Numbers that rewrite Arch Manning's 2025 season

The flop narrative was built on his first five games, during which the New Orleans native completed 60% of his passes with 11 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. Over his final eight games, he threw 15 touchdowns against 2 interceptions.

The early struggles trace back to the play sheet as much as the player. Steve Sarkisian had Manning throwing deep at a rate almost no one in the country matched, and his 11.9 air yards per attempt through Week 6 ranked second nationally.

When Texas shortened the passing game, the offense scored, and the criticism quieted.

The Texas A&M finale showed what the corrected version looks like. Against an unbeaten rival, the 6-foot-4 junior completed six of his final seven passes for 128 yards and ended the game with a touchdown run. It was his third win over a top-10 opponent, a total that outpaces several quarterbacks drafted in the first round this past spring.

Why Arch Manning came back and what Texas built around him

Manning was eligible for a 2026 draft class that analysts considered weak at quarterback, and he was widely projected as a first-round pick. He turned that down.

"I felt like I developed a lot this year, especially towards the back half, and I want to keep it going," Manning said. "There's no reason to leave."

"It was almost like the same people that built him up, wanted to tear him down because he let them down."

Texas head coach, @CoachSark talks about Arch Manning and how he's blocked out the noise 🗣️

(via @RichEisenShow) pic.twitter.com/qqo0ycz0z0

— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) July 30, 2026

Sarkisian went further at SEC Media Days in Tampa, pointing the blame away from his quarterback.

"Arch Manning a year ago wasn't on social media or television saying he was going to be the No. 1 pick in the draft," Sarkisian said. "He wasn't on television saying he was going to win the Heisman Trophy. All he did was work really hard."

Then the roster moves confirmed where Texas thought the problem lived. DeAndre Moore Jr. and Parker Livingstone left through the portal, and the Longhorns replaced them with Auburn transfer Cam Coleman, the No. 1 overall portal player according to both 247Sports and Rivals.

Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning (16) speaks to the college football press during SEC Football Kickoff Media Day at the Tampa Marriott. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Coleman caught 56 passes for 708 yards and five touchdowns on an Auburn team that never found stable quarterback play. Ryan Wingo also returns after leading Texas with 834 receiving yards.

Manning gets his referendum game almost immediately. Ohio State visits Austin on Sept. 12 at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC with College GameDay on campus, a rematch of the 2025 opener in Columbus where the Buckeyes held Texas to seven points and started the flop narrative in the first place.

Texas has not won a national title since 2005, and the program returned its quarterback specifically to end that drought.