We brought home a new member of the Galey family this weekend.
Madigan “Maddie” Galey is a rambunctious little puppy who lives up to that red hair of hers.
She is also, like the Irish Setter and Poodle parents that she comes from, very smart. Despite being just nine weeks old and living in our house only two days now, she has learned her name, learned how to “sit” and learned how to annoy her big brother Toby.
She may be a young pup, but she has already shown the ability to learn things quickly and begin to put those new skills to use.
In some ways, she reminds me of another young pup who comes from good stock and has already shown skills that make us think he’s going to be a great one.
Arch Manning may have had limited playing time so far, but what he did in those reps suggests he is going to be very good.
The young scion of America’s first family of quarterbacks had a completion percentage of 67.8 last year while averaging 10.4 yards per attempt and a QB rating of 184.
The high completion percentage tells us Manning knows where to go with the ball while the high yards per attempt tells us he has the arm to zip the ball down the field.
Manning has all the physical tools to be great, but it’s the mental tools that could make him elite.
Tom Brady talked about how it’s the mental preparation that separates elite quarterbacks from good quarterbacks during an interview with Colin Cowherd ahead of the Super Bowl.
“That’s what my magic superpower was. It wasn’t how fast I could run, it was how fast I could diagnose what they were doing,” Brady said. “The reality is I could figure out what they were doing before they did it because that’s how I learned to play the game.
"I didn’t snap the ball unless I knew what they were doing and if my guys were going to be open. The one benefit you have as a quarterback, before you snap the ball, you know where everybody on your team is running. If you have five eligibles out on the route, I know where all five are going. If I look at the defense and say, ‘none of my guys are going to be open based on this coverage, we didn’t design the play for this coverage,’ I don’t need to snap the ball. I can run something different. I can check to a run, I can check to a screen. I can signal to a receiver and change a route. I would just change the route to a route that I thought would be open, I’d catch the ball and I’d throw it and it would be a 15-yard gain and everyone would be like, ‘God, it looks so easy.’ And I’d be like, ‘well yeah, it’s easy because you’re not paying attention to the right thing.’
“What’s going on in here,” Brady said pointing to his head, “is what my superpower was. That was Peyton Manning’s superpower, that was Drew Brees’ superpower. Those were the guys that I tried to be like. That’s what we did a great job of. That part of the game is what I’m really fascinated by and when I see players play like that, those are the guys that I think have the most upside.”
Notice how he name-dropped Peyton Manning, Arch’s uncle, in there? Peyton was notorious for being uber-prepared.
Arch has already shown he has that reputation as well.
“I think Arch got the athleticism and sort of Peyton’s kind of serious tone and his drive,” Arch’s younger brother Heid Manning said during an interview with Chip Brown.
Heid is also a student at UT and he played football with his brother Arch in high school. He talked about how the coaches would go around the room asking how much time each player spent watching film and most logged about 30 minutes. Arch would have watched six hours of film before a game.
If Arch was logging six hours of game film each week ahead of games against 2A, small school football opponents in high school, what do you think he’s going to do prior to facing Ohio State, Georgia, OU or A&M?
It’s not just the weekly film study that Brady was talking about that enabled him to play fast. Brady had a complete understanding of the offense. He knew, as he said, exactly where every player was going on any single play and what to check to if the defense was lined up in a way that would stop the called play.
Arch should have a full grasp of the offense from day one. He’s already had two seasons of learning Steve Sarkisian’s offense before becoming the full-time starter.
That was a luxury Quinn Ewers did not have.
Prior to the start of his redshirt freshman season, Orangebloods reported that Ewers had a lot of work to do to learn the offense. @Ketchum and @Anwar Richardson took a lot of flak for reporting that information. But it turns out they were 100 percent correct. Ewers himself would later talk about how he struggled to learn the offense during his first season as a starter.
Arch takes over having already spent two years learning the ins and outs of Steve Sarkisian’s offense.
Sure, there will be some bumps along the way … growing pains, you might call them. But Manning will be able to avoid many mistakes that young quarterbacks make simply because he will have a full grasp of what each and every player is supposed to do on each and every play.
In the words of the late great Darrell Royal, “If they will bite, they will bite as a pup.”
I fully expect Arch Manning to have a bite to him when he takes the field in Columbus, Ohio in 199 days … and I expect he will know exactly what the Buckeyes are wanting to do on defense.
Now if I can just get my young pup Maddie fully house-trained, then life will be good.
TWEETS OF INTEREST:
Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte shot down rumors this week that he is going to follow UT President Jay Hartzell to SMU.
That should be great news for Texas fans. Del Conte has elevated nearly every single sport thanks to some incredible hires, combined with elite fundraising.
But CDC has a decision to make soon about the men’s basketball program.
Rodney Terry’s Texas Longhorns are now 15-11 after getting blown out 103-80 by the number two team in the country, the Alabama Crimson Tide Tuesday night.
But while being 15-11 won’t usually lead to coaches getting fired, it’s the off-the-court loss that may end up forcing Del Conte to make a change.
Rodney Terry has lost the trust of the fans and when that’s gone, it’s almost impossible to win it back.
Will Terry lose his job after this season? Who knows? But the fans abandoning Terry means the end is coming sooner or later and if you believe that to be true, then it’s usually better to act sooner than later.
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We’re just two days away from the start of the Texas baseball season. Unlike my colleague, @ZachattheDisch, I AM predicting an Omaha run for coach Jim Schlossnagle in his first season.
Before you get too excited, Zach knows more about this than I do. But I love the Texas firepower at the plate. This lineup will give just about anyone problems.
I’m also a big believer in what Max Wiener is able to do with the staff.
The good news is, we don’t have to wait long to see what this team will look like.
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Texas softball got its season started last weekend and went 6-0 through the first three days of play. That was good enough to give coach Mike White a nice big number in the win column.
The number one ranked Horns play at home for the first time this year when they face off against Maryland Friday afternoon for the start of the “Bevo Classic.”
By the way, the Horns aren’t just winning a lot of games, they’re inspiring a lot of young girls along the way.
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Speaking of inspiring young girls … you just can’t say enough about the Texas women’s basketball team after beating South Carolina on Sunday.
The Horns play again Thursday night when they take on Kentucky.
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One of the best things about Texas’ move to the SEC is the return of the rivalry between Texas and Texas A&M.
The Aggies come into the season as the number-one-ranked team in the country. But Texas fans aren’t going to let them think they’ve won anything just yet.
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It was a bad weekend to be a Mahomes in New Orleans last weekend.
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But a worse weekend to be on horseback along the highway.
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