Texas quarterback Arch Manning will get his first college football start on Saturday when the No. 1 Longhorns host Louisiana-Monroe in Austin.
Head coach Steve Sarkisian made the start official Thursday.
A redshirt freshman, Manning will be filling in for Quinn Ewers, a Heisman Trophy candidate who suffered an abdominal strain in the Longhorns’ 56-7 win against UTSA last Saturday.
“Arch will start at quarterback Saturday,” Sarkisian said Thursday on his weekly pregame video call, per 247Sports. “You know, I feel like Quinn has made great strides ever since Saturday night into where he’s gotten to. But my decision is — I’m looking forward to [Ewers’] future as a player, but also to the future of the season for us and the longevity and getting him possibly one more week healthier for the long term. I think it’s good for us as we’re getting ready for SEC play. So Arch is more than capable, as I think we all know.”
Manning, the nephew of Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning, represented the family name well when he replaced Ewers last Saturday.
He completed nine passes for 223 yards and four touchdowns and ran for one more as he scrambled 67 yards.
The most recent Texas freshman quarterback to lead the Longhorns to at least five TDs in a game was Colt McCoy in 2006.
