Manning debut lands with a thud … It was billed as perhaps the ‘debut of the century’ but it looked more like the ‘dud of the century’ as Texas QB Arch Manning looked pretty much like one might expect a 3rd year QB making his first career start against the defending national champions in front of 103,000 raucous home fans. Except maybe worse as the #1 Longhorns lost 14-7 at #3 Ohio State as Manning just never looked comfortable in the pocket. Manning did complete 17 of 30 passes for 170 yards and a score, but also had one picked and in fact didn’t complete a pass downfield until early in the 4th quarter. In particular, the mechanics in the picket never looked right. Manning was consistently late getting rid of the ball and showed little touch or accuracy as literally every throw was coming out at 100 MPH with the result that most were either high and wide or low and in the turf. And dare we say, that at least for now, any first pick overall chatter has been pretty much squelched.
