As the Texas Longhorns mounted an incredible first-half performance against the Ole Miss Rebels, everyone was singing quarterback Arch Manning's praises, myself included.
Then, as the Horns stumbled in the second half and the Rebels came back, people were questioning if Manning should still be in the game (once again, myself included).
Leading up to the game, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian hyped up Manning's edginess after the Horns' back-to-back losses, sticking by his starting quarterback ahead of the top-20 matchup against Ole Miss.
We saw that edginess in the first half, but saw cracks in it, once again, as the second half unfolded. After the game, Sarkisian leaned into that "edginess" once again:
"It's a different attitude, so it's hard to say, 'Oh, this is one particular thing.' It's just a guy that was focused, intentional with what he was doing, upset when somebody wasn't doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing, and he made that clear," Sarkisian said on Manning. "It was just different than what he normally is, and you could feel that edge was different than what he was on other weeks."
Arch Manning's energy permeated through the entire Texas roster
Of course, you saw that "edginess" trickle down through the rest of the team too, especially with the defense stepping up to the task without star edge rusher Colin Simmons in the rotation.
"[Manning's] resolve, his grit, his mentality was important for the team," Sarkisian said. "The edginess that I touched on, I think it carried over with the team. I think our team played that way because of him... When he responds that way, when he plays that way, when he shows that fire in his belly that he had tonight, I think the team responds to that."
Sarkisian couldn't contain his pride for Manning's performance on Saturday night, exalting his quarterback, whom a lot of the country had given up on after the last two weeks.
Obviously, as I said earlier, Manning was far from perfect.
He threw two interceptions and gave up a strip-sack fumble that undeniably kept the Rebels within reach throughout the game. However, his poise, despite those mistakes and despite Ole Miss's comeback, was elite.
In the win over the Rebels, Manning started to look like that "swaggy" quarterback we saw in the second half of last season and in the fourth quarter against the Ole Miss Rebels,
If he continues to play at that level, and maybe even continues to improve over the next five weeks, we could see the Longhorns in a very different conversation (making the College Football Playoff) than the one that they'd been heading toward (missing the postseason entirely).
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