Eli Manning on nephew Arch’s lack of playing time at Texas | College Football Enquirer

Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz chats with two-time Super Bowl champion Eli Manning about his nephew, phenom quarterback Arch Manning, who isn’t getting playing time as a freshman at Texas. Uncle Eli shares his view on what Arch can learn from the sidelines.

Video transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

JASON FITZ: Arch, was obviously part of your family, has this pressure that comes with the way we cover college football now with name, image, likeness, recruiting, all of that. What advice have you given Arch on how to deal with the pressure that comes with being a Manning?

ELI MANNING: Well I just told him, you know, more about just the pressure of going to play college football. And he's got a lot of expectations. I said, hey, just go in there and don't forget to be a college student. Don't forget that, hey, this is a great time in your life. And you're in college. You're at Austin. Learning the game of football, being with your teammates, all those things are awesome.

And so I know he's working extremely hard. He's going to learn a ton this season, whether he's redshirting or kind of sitting and watching and learning. And hopefully I think that's just gets him more prepared so when he does get into games just by going through the practices he's gotten used to the speed of college football and learning the playbook.

JASON FITZ: Even in today's world, do you think a year of sitting and watching can still help the development of a young quarterback with all this pressure?

ELI MANNING: Yeah. No, I think I think 1,000%. I think it's very helpful. I know for me in college I redshirted one year then sat a year then played the next three. And I think that was the best thing for me. Even coming into the NFL, just sitting for the first 10 games of the season was beneficial to me.

Just to watch. Just to see the preparation that goes into it, the game plans, the different plays. Trying to understand like what plays are my favorite? And you know, what ones do I feel most comfortable with?

And have seen now, you know, I got to run during training camp or you get to see the starting quarterback run in the game, the different defenses, and the reactions, and the decision making that the quarterbacks have to make. So I think it's a great opportunity to learn, kind of digest everything going in. Still make mistakes going on, but I think you'll have a tendency not to repeat as many mistakes and learn quicker.