Cooper Manning Thought Arch’s Best Fit for College Might Have Been an ACC School

In less that two weeks, Arch Manning is set to make his debut as starting quarterback of the Texas Longhorns.

While Manning has taken snaps for Texas in both of his first two seasons with the Longhorns, he did so as the backup to Quinn Ewers. With Ewers now working through a preseason regiment with the Miami Dolphins in preparation for the NFL season, it is Arch’s time to shine in Austin.

Manning’s journey to the Longhorns was far from a straight line. Having been the most-watched high school quarterback prospect since the moment he took a snap, schools had been working to recruit Manning for years before he ultimately decided to head to Texas.

In an excerpt from his upcoming book American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback, Seth Wickersham outlined two impressive operations taking place in concert with each other—the colleges doing everything they could to recruit Manning, and the Manning family working to shield Arch from the chaos of the attention, and give him enough space to fall in love with football.

Arch Manning Might Have Been a Virginia Cavalier, If His Father Cooper Had Made the Call

At one point in his story, Wickersham lists off several of the many visits Arch Manning took before deciding to join the Longhorns. There were two trips to Clemson, four each to Alabama, Georgia and Texas, a few stops at Ole Miss where his father played, and visits to LSU and Virginia.

According to Wickersham, if Arch’s dad Cooper had his way, the next Manning quarterback might have been a Virginia Cavalier.

His reasoning, per Wickersham:

It wasn't a football crazy school. He could live under the radar. His older sister, May, was a student there. As Cooper and Arch walked through campus, the father saw an opportunity for something close to peacefulness. "You could come here, be a normal guy," Cooper told him. "No one's gonna mess with you."

Chances are, Arch Manning would still get plenty of attention at Virginia. While they might not take their football as seriously as the likes of some of the SEC schools Manning was visiting, it’s not like the Cavaliers stay away from the gridiron.

But instead, Arch decided on Texas, believing it was a program on the way up, intrigued by its bold move to the SEC, and enjoying his relationship with coach and play-called Steve Sarkisian.

Additionally, Manning apparently thought that Austin was a big enough city that he wouldn’t be recognized. We’ll see how true that is when he starts taking snaps this fall.