It is difficult to dream up a Week 1 college football matchup with more hype than the one we'll get in Columbus, Ohio on Saturday, Aug. 30. No. 3 Ohio State, the reigning national champion, takes on No. 1 Texas in a rematch of last season's College Football Playoff semifinal game. And of course, the game will mark the debut of Arch Manning as the Longhorns' full-time starting quarterback. Short of pushing back the contentious noon kickoff, it would be hard for a game to have more hype.
Manning impressed in relief of Quinn Ewers last season, throwing for 939 yards, nine touchdowns and two interceptions, while adding a rushing element to the Texas offense to the tune of 108 yards and four scores.
Matthew Golden hopes to make the roughly 530-mile trek from Green Bay to The Shoe for his Longhorns' highly-anticipated season-opener. After transferring in from Houston, Golden put together a standout season for Texas, catching 58 passes for 987 yards and nine touchdowns—six receptions and 107 yards coming from Manning throws. The strong showing landed him with the Packers, who took him at No. 23 in the 2025 NFL draft.
While he's preparing for his first NFL season, Golden is fired up to see his Longhorns in a revenge spot at the Buckeyes as they look to start their own national title pursuit. Speaking to Sports Illustrated on behalf of RE/MAX, Golden says he believes that Manning will take a more active leadership role this season as he and a number of young Longhorns who played significant roles in 2024 climb the depth chart.
“I feel like this year he’s going to be a more vocal leader," Golden said. "They’ve got a lot of young guys on the team that stepped up last year for us. So I feel like for them, I think they’re going to go all the way."
As many others around Manning and the Longhorns have said, Golden was impressed with how the young quarterback handles himself despite his background and famous football family. He also shed some light on how the typically mild-mannered Manning does show some fire around his teammates.
“He got some juice to him, I ain’t gonna lie," Golden said. "Y’all probably do see it on the field. When we’re in the locker room and stuff, Arch got some dog to him."
The former receiver says that one day when the players were horsing around in the locker room, he shoved Manning to see how he would respond, and the quarterback didn't disappoint.
"It was one day after practice ... and I just wanted to mess with him around and see how he was going to react. So I pushed him around a little bit—in the locker room we like to play—I had did something and he just bucked up. You wouldn’t expect that coming from Arch. You would think he’d just chill out a bit. But he’s a great guy. You wouldn’t know he’s Arch Manning if you just walked around, you wouldn’t be able to tell because of how he handles himself."
It's definitely not the reputation that Manning has developed through his first few years in Austin, but as he gets ready to try and topple the reigning national champions in front of nearly 103,000 opposing fans, Texas has to like knowing it has a quarterback that won't shrink away when others try to push him around.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as 'Got Some Dog to Him': Former Texas Star Matthew Golden on the Arch Manning Fans Don't See.
