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Kirby Smart Reveals Why Arch Manning is ‘Scary’ Ahead of the SEC Championship
For the second time this college football season, the Texas Longhorns and the Georgia Bulldogs will be facing off. The biggest difference between this meeting and the one back on Oct. 19, which saw Georgia leave Austin with a 30-15 win, is that some major hardware is on the line as the two teams are battling for the SEC title. On top of fighting for conference supremacy, they will also be duking it out for a potential automatic bye in the College Football Playoff if the winner is viewed as one of the four best teams. While Georgia got the best of Texas the first time, the Longhorns have hit their stride lately. They also unveiled a secret weapon in their 17-7 win over Texas A&M this past Saturday, which was using backup quarterback Arch Manning as a wildcat quarterback.
Something that Georgia head coach Kirby Smart revealed to the media on Monday makes the nephew of Peyton and Eli, scary.
“As far as Arch goes,” Smart said. “He’s what everybody thought he was. He’s athletic, smart, thick, a great thrower. I mean he can run their entire offense while at the same time creating designed runs or off-schedule runs. And both are scary because designed runs with him are tough to defend because you’re having to defend the whole field. And then he’s also an elite thrower and passer.” For the first time this season, Manning was deployed in the red zone to give Texas a dynamic running threat. A wrinkle that worked out to perfection on his first look in the package, as Manning turned a 4th-and-2 from the Texas A&M 15 into a 15-yard rushing touchdown to get Texas on the board.
Using Manning in this way also takes some of the pressure off of Quinn Ewers, who has been dealing with an ankle injury since the first half of the Kentucky game two weeks ago. Taking pressure off of Ewers and changing things up, may also help prevent a repeat of what Georgia did to the Texas quarterbacks the first time they played. The Bulldogs sacked Ewers and Manning seven times combined and forced four turnovers between the duo. With Manning’s new package and growing confidence, it could force the defense to be less aggressive or perhaps guess wrong one too many times, which could lead to a big play for Texas.
Despite Saturday’s game essentially being a home game for Georgia, ESPN BET has the Longhorns favored by 2.5 points. ESPN’s FPI also gives Texas a 61.5% chance of winning.
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