I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the nature of meritocracy, the notion that power, money, and jobs should go to people based on their talent and ability.
In the United States, meritocracy is considered a desirable state of affairs, and many a poor, deluded soul believes we live in one and that their success in life is their just reward for how cool, smart, and awesome they are.
Michael Dunlop Young, a British sociologist and egalitarian, is credited with coining the term (he did not, but that’s a story for another time). He meant it as a perjorative.
He wrote a satirical and extremely prescient novel, The Rise of the Meritocracy: 1870-2033, depicting a United Kingdom split between a “meritorious” elite and a disenfranchised underclass of “dunces.” His theme is that meritocracy does not solve aristocracy; it’s just aristocracy wearing a pretentious hat.
In the book’s story, automation renders most of the dunces unemployable, and they end up becoming the elite’s servants, deprived of their dignity. The book ends with revolution brewing as people begin to realize that Elite status has become, functionally, hereditary, a recreation of the monarchy everyone thought they were replacing.
Which brings us to the most angst-ridden team of the week. I could’ve picked Alabama; it’s always funny when they lose. I could’ve picked North Carolina; Bill Belichek looked very grumpy as he got blown out in his college debut. I could’ve picked Clemson; they’ve failed to score more than 10 points in their last several season openers. But I didn’t pick any of them. I picked—
TEXAS
Rankings of Note: Entered the week atop the AP Poll and #5 in SP+. They are no longer atop the AP Poll and #13 in SP+.
Recent History: Lost to Ohio State in last year’s playoff semifinals. Then they lost to them again this week.
Fanbase Angst Level: 17 out of 10 (Baseline 5, +1 for living in Texas, +1 for have you ever been to Texas, +10 for no but seriously have you ever been to Texas?)
Texas fans can relax about: Whatever you think is coming to kill you isn’t, so please put the gun away.
Texas fans should angst about: The fact that gun owners are more likely to harm themselves than others.
Texas’s next game: They’ll get three test dummies chew toys easy games in a row before having to play Florida at the beginning of October.
Texas’s starting quarterback, Arch Manning, was always going to be the subject of unrealistic expectations. Sports media has been drilling it in our heads for the last 24 months. He entered the season as the odds-on favorite to win the Heisman even though his only two previous starts were against lower-tier opponents, specifically the universities of Who Care and Why Bother. Talking heads have been arguing he should be a top ten pick in next year’s draft on the basis of “do you know who his family is?”
He was considered the number one overall recruit in the 2023 class even though every single scouting report acknowledged he was not playing against high-caliber opposition and his decision-making was questionable. He has the profile of a very good quarterback, to be clear, but not the number one guy. He reached that echelon on the basis of, say it with me now, “do you know who his family is?”
His uncle is Peyton Manning, an NFL quarterback known for his tactical mastery of the sport. His other uncle is Eli Manning, who was an NFL quarterback known for thinking “OH BOY I HOPE THIS WORKS!” in the voice of the bald Rugrat before lobbing the ball as far as he could.
The patriarch of the Manning family, and Arch’s namesake, is Archie Manning, who was an NFL quarterback in the 1970s for the New Orleans Saints, then finished his career in the NFL as a professional clipboard holder for the Vikings and Oilers. He started 139 games in his career. He won 35 of them.
Arch’s father is Cooper Manning, who was not an NFL quarterback but would have been had his spine not stenosis’d before he played a snap in college. He claims this does not bother him. It probably does.
If I were a screenwriter looking for a thematic throughline for Arch’s story—and I am not—it would very clearly be the idea of parents living vicariously through their children and the ungodly psychic damage that can cause when expectations are amplified by the high stakes of fame.
That pressure got to Arch during the Ohio State game, inarguably the biggest of his very short career.
He appeared nervous throughout, but that might have been because his offensive line could not consistently protect the pocket, and the Buckeye secondary may well be one of the best in the country. Adding insult to injury, the Ohio State defense is coached by Matt Patricia, who, having lost weight since his days as the worst Detroit Lions head coach in living memory (what an honor that is!), now looks like Rasputin wearing a MAGA hat.
Ohio State won the game, which I will politely call a defensive chess match instead of what it actually was (EXTREMELY BORING), by a score of 14 to 7. Texas’s anemic offense performance was not entirely on Matt Patricia’s dark wizardry. Some of that was on questionable playcalling. A good chunk of it was on Arch Manning disappointing work as a passer.
His accuracy was spotty all day. Receivers barely had a chance to get their hands on the ball. He threw them so low. There was a lot of velocity on his ball, but he kept hitting people in the knees, shins, and ankles. It was like watching a cowboy named Inaccurate Ivan point his gun at a barkeep’s feet and shout, “dance for me, you sonofabitch!” which is a really weird thing to do to your teammates.
To be fair, you could see flashes of talent late in the game when Texas went uptempo in a comeback bid. One particular NFL-caliber pass to his tight end stood out, but so did a misstep. He had his fastest receiver, Trey Wingo, wide open on a drag route. Wingo had so much space he could’ve opened a three-ring circus. It was six points if Arch could deliver an easy pass, but he couldn’t. Wingo barely even had a chance.
By then, it was too late to save the hypetrain. Various outlets report he fell down the Heisman odds board going into the second half. He fell behind Garrett Nussmeier, a son of an NFL quarterback rather than the nephew of two.
Arch Manning will likely have a collegiate career that falls somewhere between perfectly fine to pretty good. He will probably be drafted and play in the NFL. That doesn’t mean he has not already, or will in the future, disappoint Texas fans.
This is not his fault. It is the fault of a wildly imprecise and, at times, quite lazy sports media apparatus. The Mannings are well-liked. They’re good hangs. Of course people are going to have good things to say about their nephew.
And once a hypetrain gets going, everybody wants to get on. Calling someone overrated when everyone else is calling him the reincarnation of Football Jesus is a good way to make yourself look like an idiot. If you’re wrong and he turns out to just be some guy, there’s less at stake. You don’t look bad. Everybody else got it wrong too.
This isn’t a “I was right to think that Arch Manning sucks” column. I just think prognosticators need to do more than look at a guy’s last name, body type, and his uncle’s charisma before making a projection. It makes them look stupid, it makes the kid looks stupid, and it makes me sound bitter when I’m really just amused.