Texas Football: Arch Manning takes second-team reps in first practice

One of the biggest storylines heading into the first spring practice for the Texas football program was the debut of the former elite five-star recruit and true freshman quarterback Arch Manning. Texas and head coach Steve Sarkisian began the first day of spring practice on March 6.

That means the highly anticipated debut of the No. 1 ranked recruit in the nation in the 2023 class, Arch, got to make his practice debut this spring for the Longhorns. And it didn’t take long for an interesting nugget to surface on the first day of spring ball for the Longhorns this week.

Arch apparently took the second-team practice reps behind redshirt sophomore quarterback Quinn Ewers on the first day of spring drills on March 6. A report from Joe Cook of Inside Texas on the morning of March 6 (paid content) indicates that Arch took the second-team practice reps on the first day of spring drills since sophomore quarterback Maalik Murphy wasn’t a full participant.

Arch Manning gets second-team QB reps in first day of spring practice for Texas football

At least during the media window on the first day of spring practice, Murphy wasn’t a participant in the quarterback drills on March 6.

Some of the other notable Longhorns players that didn’t fully participate in drills during the media window on the first day of spring practice were redshirt senior running back Keilan Robinson, redshirt sophomore running back Jonathon Brooks, and sophomore nickelback Jaylon Guilbeau.

Moreover, the fact that Murphy was not fully participating in quarterback drills in spring practice on March 6 means essentially moved up the rest of the players at the position in the rotation behind Ewers. Here is the way that the rest of the quarterback reps were reportedly distributed on the first day of drills.

• First team: Quinn Ewers
• Second team: Arch Manning
• Third team: Charles Wright
• Fourth team: Cole Lourd
• Fifth team: Joe Tatum

We will continue to monitor any developments that come about in terms of the distribution of practice reps at quarterback in the early stages of spring practice.

Texas has 14 more spring practices that will take place before Sark and the Longhorns take to the field at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium for the annual Orange-White spring football game on April 15.