Jesse Palmer breaks down early-season struggles for Arch Manning
By Jyesha Nance
Published:
The Texas Longhorns are currently the No. 8-ranked team in the country. However, some fans and analysts alike don’t view them as a top 10 team, believing they haven’t lived up to the preseason hype. One main reason is the lack of consistency and dominance from quarterback Arch Manning.
On Thursday, Jesse Palmer joined David Pollack on his podcast, See Ball, Get Ball, to give his take on Manning’s start to the season. Jesse believes Manning’s mechanics are the cause of his inconsistent playing ability.
“There are throws that you watch and you go ‘Okay, that’s a future first-round pick talent, right?’ Even though the competition wasn’t as good as they [Longhorns] would face coming into this year, and a lot of people have talked about this, mechanics have been pretty poor up to this point,” Palmer said.
Through the first 3 weeks of the season, Manning has posted 579 passing yards with 6 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. Manning’s performances have been a mixed bag. While he has, at times, racked up yards and touchdowns, decision-making and accuracy issues have persisted.
“I asked [coach Steve Sarkisian] about that and Sark said there’s times when Arch drops back to pass and his eyes are in the wrong place,” Palmer said. “As a thrower, your eyes lead your feet, which leads your arm. It all has to be together. There are times when he’s [Arch] looking over here to make a throw, and really he should be looking this way, and when it’s too late after he realizes the safety rotated that side, ‘I’m supposed to be over here,’ now he’s got to get his shoulders turned around, going the opposite way, and his feet aligned. He can’t get it there as fast.
“So his mechanism to speed up is he just stays open, and he sidearms everything, and he tips his shoulder and kind of wings it, and that’s when the ball, and a lot of his misses, torpedo into the ground. I think it starts with his eyes and just his mechanism to try and catch up everything, but it’s not all right, right now.”
Manning and the Longhorns are back in action on Saturday when they host Sam Houston (0-3). Texas (2-1) is a 39.5-point favorite in the game, per DraftKings.
