If Brian Kelly had won more games at LSU, he’d still be in the coaching business.
Now, Kelly works in the pundit business. He’s getting the hang of it.
As a pundit, you’re often asked to pick sides, and so it was that Kelly got asked to weigh in on the Texas conundrum.
Who’s to blame for the Texas offense being stuck in a rut?
Is this a Steve Sarkisian problem or an Arch Manning issue?
The easy answer is both are to blame, but split-the-baby takes make for unappetizing fare in the pundit business.
So, Kelly did his job. He picked a side.
“I think it’s on the play-caller,” Kelly said recently on Sirius XM. “I think the play-caller takes a lot of the responsibility."
In other words, he’s blaming Sarkisian.
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In fact, Kelly put Sarkisian on blast.
“Look, he’s your quarterback,” Kelly said. “They’re not going back. I mean, they’re not going to bench him unless there’s just a total meltdown. Look, Josh Heupel is doing it at Tennessee, playing great defense, running the football, and ... he’s played two (young) quarterbacks, and so you can’t tell me that you can’t fit this offense to Arch Manning.”
It’s uncommon for one coach to publicly shred another with criticism, but Kelly isn’t in the coaching biz at the moment. He’s serving takes, and this one rates 3½ out of 5 chili peppers on the spicy scale. It’s got a kick to it.
Arch Manning or Steve Sarkisian, who's to blame?
Is Kelly right? Is this on Sark’s shoulders?
To a certain extent, yes.
An offensive breakdown of this magnitude reflects on the coach’s decision-making. Sarkisian gets paid the big bucks to produce solutions, and he’s yet to come up with any. Texas has two losses. It could easily have four losses, because it cannot score enough. I see a lot of doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Texas hired Sarkisian because of his “guru” reputation as a play-caller and quarterback developer, but he left his guru card behind in Alabama.
However, Kelly is letting Manning off the hook too easily. How many times have we seen the veteran Texas quarterback fail to spot open receivers, or hold the ball for forever and a day and absorb a sack, or fire prayer-balls into coverage? Answer: Too many times.
Manning isn’t executing. It doesn’t take a “guru” to see that.
Even an ex-guru like Sarkisian noticed.
“We need to see a better version of him this week,” Sark said ahead of his team's game against Mississippi. “The player is in there. It's our job to get it out of him.”
I’m unconvinced a high-level player is inside the No. 16 uniform. I’ve not seen anything from Arch resembling a Peyton or an Eli or an Archie, other than the seven letters on the back of the uniform. But Sarkisian is correct, it’s his job to get more out of his quarterback.
(Should Texas bench Arch Manning? You can hear me debate that subject on College Football Unfiltered. Click here to watch that conversation, or click here to listen.)
Sarkisian has had four years to work with Manning. If he couldn’t develop Manning, then it's the coach's responsibility to acquire or develop someone good enough to replace him.
Apparently, he’s not done that, either, because he’s sticking with Manning against Ole Miss in a potential elimination game for the Longhorns.
What can Arch Manning actually do? His coach must consider that
Manning catches a lot of heat. That’s warranted, but it’d help if Texas could establish a run game, like the one Tennessee has in support of its young quarterbacks.
The Longhorns rank 13th in the SEC in rushing offense. Its two prized transfer tailbacks proved a waste of cash. Ex-Longhorn CJ Baxter is enjoying a better season than either, after transferring to Kentucky. The Texas offensive line is some rotten beef.
But a guru would sit down with his quarterback and figure out what he's comfortable doing. Manning is a veteran, but Sarkisian would be better off treating him like a sophomore and asking him, “What is it you feel most at ease doing? Let’s do that, again and again and again.”
Kelly pointed this out.
“Sometimes, there has to be that sit-down conversation, (where a coach says), ‘Look, we’re going to do what you can do and execute,’” Kelly said.
Kelly predicted the Longhorns would win their final six regular-season games if Sarkisian can figure out how to boost Manning’s completion rate and establish a more dependable run game.
I hear two big ifs in that equation, and if ifs and buts were candies and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas, and Kelly would still be in the coaching business instead of the pundit business.
If Sarkisian can’t fix the Texas offense, he’ll need a job in the pundit biz, and it won’t really matter who was to blame.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Listen to his podcast, "College Football Unfiltered." Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Arch Manning saga at Texas gains new critic, and he's blaming Steve Sarkisian