Last Year It Was Kamala, This Year It’s… Arch Manning? | The American Spectator

I never saw Arch Manning play in high school, though he went to Newman High in New Orleans, which is my alma mater. I’m a religious college football watcher and, when I’m in the mood, an observer of the NFL. That doesn’t leave much room for the high school game. Maybe before I’m dead I’ll have a son who plays; at that point, I’ll be in the stands trying not to be one of those dads.

That said, I know a good number of people who did watch Arch play. And I did see quite a few games his famous uncles, Peyton and Eli Manning, played at Newman when I was younger, not to mention I remember the reaction among observers of my alma mater’s team to their exploits. (RELATED: Hope Returns, Miraculously, To Baton Rouge)

Everyone I talked to was adamant that Arch wasn’t in Payton or Eli’s league.

He’s good, was the general reaction. Nice size, pretty good arm, moves fairly well, knows the game. But Peyton and Eli had the “it” factor. When they played, even in high school, there was zero question they were going to be NFL Hall of Famers and legendary quarterbacks, even beyond the repute of their father, Archie Manning, who starred at Ole Miss and with the then-terrible New Orleans Saints. (RELATED: NFL Tries Male Cheerleaders. That’s the Left’s Plan to Win Back Men?)

Arch? Probably a pretty good college quarterback. Might make a roster in the NFL and hang around a while. Maybe even get to start a little during his career.

So why was there so much hype around Arch Manning? After all, coming out of high school following the 2022 season, Arch was rated the top high school football player in America at any position, and when he signed with Texas, the hype train left the station and went into orbit.

Was it his last name?

After Saturday, when the #1 Longhorns went up to Columbus to face defending national champion Ohio State and came away on the short end of a 14-7 decision in which Manning struggled, to put it kindly, it’s tempting to say the answer is yes.

Not that any of this is fair.

One of the problems with college football in the era of NIL and the transfer portal is that star power has been elevated to a level past what should be regarded as healthy. After all, this year’s true freshman phenom quarterback, Michigan’s Bryce Underwood, signed a $12 million NIL package — a number so outrageous that it throws the basic economics of the college game into question. Manning, after all, is valued at only $6.8 million according to the college sports site On3.

But Manning is college football’s most visible player, sporting endorsements including deals with Warby Parker, Raising Cane’s, Panini America, Red Bull, and Uber.

And one of the Raising Cane’s ads, which is showing in Texas and Louisiana, pairs Arch Manning with LSU’s senior quarterback Garrett Nussmeier…

The Warby Parker ad was also everywhere, including during the loss to Ohio State…

And naturally, this was poorly received not only by Texas fans but by a lot of the same media people who had pumped Arch Manning into the stratosphere over two seasons as a backup quarterback in Austin (his stats last year, 61 of 90 for 939 yards, nine touchdowns and two interceptions, were good, but they were largely skewed by one outstanding game he played as a starter against woeful Mississippi State in late September). An example…

Reviewing Arch Manning’s performance on the day.

Great in the Warby Parker ad.

Decent in Vuori and Raising Cane’s.

Football game against Ohio State? … Not great!https://t.co/OJHFUwqrmE

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) August 30, 2025

During the game, there were fans joking on social media that Arch had more commercials on TV than touchdown passes.

Or completed passes.

Or yards.

He finished the game with somewhat serviceable numbers — 17 of 30, 170 yards, a touchdown, and two interceptions.

But the visuals were not exceptional.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ksXbsbHOzM

Arch Manning is a redshirt sophomore starting the third game of his career at perhaps the toughest venue in college football against a star-studded defense coached by a former NFL head coach with multiple Super Bowl rings (Matt Patricia, who was the defensive coordinator with the New England Patriots in their glory years, as well as a head coach of the Detroit Lions).

It was eminently foreseeable that this would go badly.

And it did.

He isn’t the top pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, as the media hacks have continuously touted him to be, even though the Mannings have said repeatedly that Arch isn’t leaving for the NFL after this year. Perhaps now they’ll listen.

Nussmeier, who played an error-free game in leading LSU past No. 4 Clemson and might have nudged into a slight lead for this year’s Heisman Trophy, seems a better bet than Manning for those honors.

Why? Because he’s a fifth-year senior who went through the tribulations of a first-year starter last year and is actually prepared for the spotlight now.

Paying your dues actually matters.

Why can’t the people in the media, whether in sports or otherwise, recognize this obvious fact?

One answer, obviously, is that American media doesn’t thrive on truth or information. It thrives on hype, controversy, and stupidity. Just look at this…

If anybody ought to be taken to the abattoir over the failure to deliver on the hype, it isn’t Arch Manning or Texas’s coach, Steve Sarkisian. It’s the Paul Finebaums and Stephen A. Smiths of the world, who anointed a kid with two starts to his name as the greatest thing in college football since Tim Tebow.

With zero justification other than that last name.

They did this with Kamala Harris, you know. That hype-tastic crash and burn might even have been worse than what’s happening to Arch Manning — especially given that Kamala had already proven herself to be a bust, and what they were hyping was something they already knew was a warmed-over political turd.

And when Harris failed to deliver, the political media at least managed to show a small modicum of embarrassment.

Sports media people aren’t quite as intelligent as political media. As hard as that might be to believe.

READ MORE from Scott McKay:

Five Quick Things: A Glorious Revolution Across the Pond?

The Demons Have Taken Hold of Minneapolis

Please Deliver Us From the Poorly-Behaved Women