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During the highly-anticipated first game as starting quarterback, the fans of Texas Longhorns, this time, for the very first time, witnessed outside of the previously set idols, the five-star Arch Manning, in his first skirmish.
Quinn Ewers suffered an oblique against UTSA in week three, which gave Manning his first opportunity to start for the Texas side, which happened to be in week four against the Warhawks of Louisiana-Monroe. Texas came into the contest as an overwhelming 44.5-point favorite.
In the half of the week, Manning scored five touchdowns, making expectations high. But the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. So, out of the gates in Manning’s first career drive came interception number one.
Ewers similarly began his career: throwing his first-ever interception in his starting debut, an opening drive against Louisiana-Monroe, ironically. CJ Vogel of Texas Football remarked that both quarterbacks made the same error early in their careers.
Manning Shows Resilience
Plugging the interval first, Manning could already show the same poise and fortitude seen in his uncles, the NFL greats Peyton and Eli Manning. He made up by returning to the game and throwing two touchdown passes that helped Texas go up 21-0 at the end of the first quarter.
Manning followed this with another scoring drive, demonstrating his composure in dealing with errors. Perhaps adding to the rage would be a recent comment by Louisiana-Monroe defensive coordinator Earnest Hill. Hill had previously tried to temper the hype surrounding Manning and said, “We have some kids on our team who played against him in New Orleans.
So, they don't give too much of fear against them, and even a couple of guys have already beat him”. That was probably a bad thing to say, but up until now, at least, it has not appeared to perturb Manning or to slow down Texas.
With the score settled in favor of the Longhorns very early in the match, it seems that Hill’s accusation was a little too much and eventually came back to bite.
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