‘A uniquely American job’: What it takes to be a big-time college quarterback

Arch Manning was talking about his golf game, replying to a throwaway question at Texas’ SEC football media day about how he blows off steam in the offseason. The Longhorns quarterback said he’d been hitting the links regularly on the weekends, tagging along most recently with a buddy who was a member at Barton Creek Country Club to play the Ben Crenshaw-designed course in Austin. The driver, Manning said, had been working particularly well, so well that the 10-handicap golfer had just broke 80 for the first time. This was back in July, less than a week before the Longhorns would head into full preseason workouts, and Manning admitted that his golf days were numbered. “I’m going to have to stop here in a week or so until about February,” he said, A reporter interrupted before Manning could finish his thought. “Not January?” he asked. Manning looked quizzically at him. “Whenever the season ends,” Manning replied, to which the reporter responded, “The season ends at the end of January.” Manning smiled. “Right, so I’ll be playing golf again in February.’’ This is what it is to be a college quarterback, where simple exchanges have hidden messages – or worse, landmines to avoid – and to speak is to risk having your every word parsed. It is chronic accountability coupled with crippling responsibility. It is to be the big man on campus, until you become the biggest loser. It is to be both Fernando Mendoza, Heisman winner, and Alberto Mendoza, recruited-over backup forced to transfer. It is to possess a strong arm, a sharp mind, a rhinoceros’ thick skin and a goldfish’s memory. “People say good things about you when you win and bad things about you when you lose,” Ohio State signal-caller Julian Sayin said during the Buckeyes’ Big Ten media day. Sayin stopped to smile. “Actually, sometimes they say bad things about you when you win, too.” On one hand, it is fair to ponder: Who would want such a job? But on the other, is the truth. Who wouldn’t? In the hierarchy of sporting alpha males, there is no one higher than quarterback. They are the varsity jacket-wearing, high school heartthrobs and the NFL ad pitchmen, the players kids clamor to be and who companies want to associate with. Lost in the fanfare is the very delicate balance they are asked to walk between fame and infamy, adulation and abuse, but the allure makes it hard not to want to take the walk. “It is a uniquely American job,” says author and ESPN.com writer Seth Wickersham, who sought to understand the position of quarterback in his book, “American Kings.” “You wear all of these hats that no other sport requires you to wear. Amateur psychologist, spokesperson, breathtaking a**hole, all of these things you have to be and not everybody has it and to this day, I don’t think anybody knows where it comes from.” A high-profile showdown in Austin No doubt in part aided by the availability of NIL money, this year’s crop of college signal-callers is especially abundant. Of the top 20 players with odds to win the Heisman Trophy by BetMGM, only two party-crashing wide receivers, Jeremiah Smith (Ohio State) and Malachi Toney (University of Miami), break up the glut of quarterbacks. They all arrived via different paths. Some took the one less traveled – Trinidad Chambliss went from Division II Ferris State to Ole Miss. Others took the scenic route. Miami’s Darian Mensah started at Tulane, transferred to Duke and then hightailed it to join the Hurricanes this year. And one took a direct snap – BYU’s Bear Bachmeier became the Cougars’ first freshman to start behind center in school history when he debuted against Portland State last season. This weekend, two – Manning and Sayin – will go head-to-head in a top-5 rematch of a game that ought to serve as a quarterback cautionary tale. After the Buckeyes topped the Longhorns, 14-7, in 2025, Manning was tabbed an automatic flop and Sayin destined to chart the path to another national title for OSU. Neither, of course, held true. Manning got better over time, putting the bow on his season with 376 total yards and four touchdowns against Michigan in the Citrus Bowl. “I think … what he got put through probably would have melted or destroyed 99% of people in his shoes,” Manning’s coach Steve Sarkisian said. “All he did was stay consistent and true to who he was, which was to continue to work hard, continue to be a great teammate, try to get better, and he did.” Sayin, in the meantime, struggled to the finish. He was bumpy in a win against Michigan and then came up short in the Big Ten championship game against Indiana and in the first-round playoff loss against Miami. “Julian Sayin has a different look in his eye,” his coach, Ryan Day, said. “He had great success last year. Won his first start ever, home against Texas, top five matchup. Won our rivalry game in the sideways snow. Came up short at the end of the year. We all did. When you look in his eye now, you see a different person, a different body. He’s worked.” Whether Manning comes into his own or Sayin shows a new glimmer remains to be seen. But it won’t stop the conjecture before the game – or the referendums after it. “Everyone has an opinion, and people are paid to talk in the media,” Manning said. “There’s nothing you can do. I’m controlling the controllables, but it probably lights a little bit of a fire in me.” All the smoke Which is, of course, one of the great separators of quarterbacks from mere mortals. They want the smoke. For all that fans project on them – assuming they are the smartest, best looking, standard of masculinity – they bring their own set of necessary traits to the table, too. A degree of arrogance is required for the position, a willingness to absorb the spotlight partnered with the certainty that you are built to handle it. “As a kid, you grow up and you dream of being in that situation,” said John Mateer, Oklahoma’s starter. Which, really, every kid does. Who hasn’t hustled out into the backyard to mimic their sports heroes? But it is one thing to make believe; it is altogether a different story to do the job and do it well. Wickersham spent more than a year writing his book and cultivated the background from a sportswriting life spent observing QBs. He once dreamed of being one himself, which is what ignited the curiosity. He talked to, among others, John Elway, Steve Young and Warren Moon, while also traipsing around youth camps and talking to kids tabbed as the next insert-name-of-great-QB-here. He believes quarterbacks can be both curated and created. Some have innate talent that is naturally honed and directed. A kid with a gun for an arm and physical gifts is directed behind center much like the wily speedster heads to the wide receiver or defensive back group. Others, for certain, are incubated by gridiron versions of cheer moms, who shuffle their sons around in search of stardom. But both, he says, eventually develop a brash confidence that allows them master the position. Wickersham says, with only the slightest of chuckles, that every quarterback is something of a sociopath and likens them to politicians in the middle of a race. They require bad news filters and chronic reassurance and, contrary to the arrogance required, also have a high degree of insecurity. He even chronicles Tom Brady’s love life evolution – from dating Tara Reid to marrying Giselle Bündchen – as the evidence of the quarterback mindset. “That’s not a mistake,” Wickersham says. “The quarterback, he can’t not dominate things.” The college football microscope The college game is a curious fishbowl. It is at once not nearly as big as the NFL and yet somehow the spotlight can feel even more glaring. It is a new experience, for starters, with most players getting their first foray into stardom, which can be undercut by at least an attempt at campus normalcy. They walk among us, if you will. Manning has said that often, while walking to class, he’d call his mom, Ellen, so as to avoid either the finger-pointing or the picture requests. Manning, of course, was born for this. The grandson of Archie and nephew of Peyton and Eli, he is next in line in the first family of football. Before he threw a pass, he starred in a national commercial. Not playing was not an option. Asked what he might do if he couldn’t play a sport, Manning looks genuinely perplexed, as if a life without sport had never crossed his mind. Likely because it hadn’t. “Would he be who he is if he was in a different family?” Wickersham says. “I mean, probably not, right?” What’s interesting is that, despite all that life prep, Manning’s transition to starter was bumpy. His overall passing efficiency rating for the 2025 season was 144.92, 42nd nationally and seventh in the SEC. Meanwhile, Chambliss started his career at Ferris, a small school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Though the program is good – the Bulldogs have won four national titles – there’s no national TV deal. Top Taggart Field seats 6,200. No one knew who he was, really. After transferring to Ole Miss, he was designated Austin Simmons’ backup – until Simmons got hurt. Suddenly, there was Chambliss under center against Arkansas, in front of 65,000 screaming Rebel fans. He threw for more than 400 yards and three touchdowns against the Razorbacks. He started this season ranked as the No. 1 quarterback in the SEC – ahead of Georgia’s Gunner Stockton and Sam Leavitt at LSU, both four-star prospects and Alabama’s Keelon Russell, the No. 2 prospect in his class. “It’s been a crazy ride,” Chambliss said. “I tend not to really look at any of the rankings. I know they have no influence on my team and what our goals are and what we know in our facility. But yeah, I mean, it’s cool they have me ranked that way.” A special fraternity Mateer bumped into Terry Bradshaw at a Dallas-area card show this off season. The two connected via the rarefied air of their profession. Only 22, Mateer was born nearly two decades after Bradshaw retired. He knew him as a Fox TV analyst, not as a four-time Super Bowl winner. Last season, Mateer broke a bone in his throwing hand in September and, though he returned quickly, was not nearly himself. The injury played with his head as much as his game, robbing him of his confidence and physicality. Oklahoma went 2-2 in October, with Mateer only completing 58% of his passes. He says he watches those game films and cringes. So, when he did some digging on Bradshaw, he learned not just about his success but his style of play – he had a cannon for an arm but was known just as much for his fearlessness – and Mateer grew intrigued. He found some old film and started watching. “Terry Bradshaw, y’all, you’re not going to believe it,” Mateer says as if he found a secret sauce. “The way he makes plays and throws the ball around, it’s old school,” he said of Bradshaw. “You take some of the old-school stuff and add it to your game – not a lot of people are going to expect that.” In last week’s season opener, albeit against UTEP, he threw for 225 yards and three touchdowns. Watching from the sideline in a Boomer red shirt and a cowboy hat was Bradshaw, the past watching the future, understanding and appreciating the opportunity, the pressure and the glory as only someone in the small quarterback fraternity can.