College football’s prince doesn’t wear a jeweled crown. Instead, Arch Manning dons luxury athletic shorts.
Ahead of his highly anticipated 2025 season at Texas, where he is pegged as the starting quarterback, Manning is featured in a national ad campaign for sportswear brand Vuori.
Although uncle Peyton Manning has a full reel of commercial endorsements to his credit — the NFL legend even poked fun at his pitchman status once while hosting Saturday Night Live — Arch is the first in the Manning line of quarterbacks to benefit from the name, image and likeness era.
On3 estimates his NIL valuation at $6.8 million.
Certainly, the NCAA not allowing players to capitalize on their likeness until a generation after Arch’s uncles Peyton and Eli were Heisman Trophy contenders plays some part in their nephew being the first in the family to be compensated. But NIL aside, the debut season of Arch Manning as the Texas starting QB is one of the most highly anticipated in years.
He is the latest in a legacy of Southeastern Conference star quarterbacks. Grandfather Archie played at Ole Miss (1968–70) and was the No. 2 overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft by the New Orleans Saints. Eli also played at Ole Miss (1999–2003), and Peyton at Tennessee (1994–97) before being selected No. 1 overall in the draft.
With that lineage to live up to, it’s no wonder there’s so much buzz around Arch. And buzz is nowhere near a strong enough word. Let’s call it hysteria instead.
“Just dealing with the media and stuff, I don’t really care about all that,” Arch told reporters at SEC media days in Atlanta, where College Football Hall of Fame curators displayed Archie’s Ole Miss jersey for the event. “I’m just here to play football.”
That’s what the 21-year-old redshirt sophomore has tried to do for most of his life, but it’s never been under the radar. His father, Cooper, told The Athletic that Arch began receiving recruiting feelers in sixth grade, before he ever took his place as the next Manning to play quarterback at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans.
It’s difficult to assume the position of heir to the family dynasty, but that is what is on Arch’s shoulders in 2025. For starters, Longhorns fans are counting on him to lead Texas to its first national championship season since 2005 in the school’s second year as a member of the tough SEC.
And he’s doing it in an era of social media, where his every move will be dissected and commented on in real time — a distraction his uncles never faced in college.
In a backup role to Quinn Ewers last season, Arch completed 67.8% of his passes for 939 yards with nine touchdowns and two interceptions.
“The exposure he got last season was helpful. He got two career starts. He started as our quarterback in the first SEC game in the history of the school. And those were not all perfect,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian told ESPN in April.
“Granted, there were some great moments. He threw nine touchdowns and almost a thousand yards. There was a couple of bad picks in there, too. And in the end, I think he understands he is not riding the emotional roller coaster of the opinions of others and staying [with a] level of consistency in his approach, in his play, in his ability to pick people up. Easier said than done when you’re not in the real fire of it all. But we are fortunate that he got exposed to some of that.”
Arch now has the opportunity to become the third generation of a full-fledged dynasty. But in an interesting twist, this era of the Manning legacy may owe as much to a matriarch as to any of the men.
No one would ever confuse Peyton or Eli for dual-threat quarterbacks, each capping his SEC career with more than 100 yards lost on the ground. In the few sneak previews Sarkisian offered of Arch a season ago, the prince demonstrated mobility that, at SEC media days, he credited to his mother, Ellen, a track and volleyball standout in high school.
And, indeed, Arch rushed for 108 yards and four touchdowns in 2024, the last of which came in a 17–7 win over rival Texas A&M on the Longhorns’ way to a berth in the College Football Playoff.
While it’s the Manning name that has placed Arch squarely in the spotlight, it will be his ability to do some things in his own way that earns him a seat on the throne.
The test begins Aug. 30 in Columbus, Ohio, when Texas — No. 1 in the preseason coaches poll — meets No. 2 Ohio State in the season opener. With a Texas win that day, the coronation would begin.