Longhorns head football coach Steve Sarkisian may have to consider the unthinkable and turn the starting job over to Arch Manning if Quinn Ewers’ ongoing issues with his shoulder and, more recently, his ankle, continue to bog Texas’s current QB1.

Well, perhaps it’s not as unthinkable as it sounds. Besides Manning’s status as a 5-star recruit and the 2023 class’s top prospect, we’ve seen a high-profile QB switch during the College Football Playoff before: the 2018 title game between Georgia and Alabama. Nick Saban made Tua Tagovailoa a legend that night, giving him the nod over a struggling Jalen Hurts, watching him win the Crimson Tide’s second-to-last title of the Saban era, and putting him on the path to becoming a top NFL draft pick.

USA Today’s Blake Toppmeyer explained why Sarkisian wouldn’t be wrong to follow in the footsteps of his former boss in Tuscaloosa if the situation calls for it over the Longhorns’ next four games.

“Turning to Manning if Texas stalls wouldn’t bury Ewers, just as Saban benching Hurts didn’t doom Hurts,” Toppmeyer wrote.

“Hurts, after transferring from Alabama, finished as the Heisman Trophy runner-up for Oklahoma in 2019, and he’s enjoyed a standout NFL career, while Tagovailoa is also an NFL starter.

“Possessing two good quarterbacks on the same college roster should be a blessing, not a nightmare, but it only helps if a coach will trigger a quarterback change if the situation calls for it.

“If Ewers struggles, Sarkisian must take inspiration from Saban.

“The playoff favors the bold.”

CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli pitched unleashing Manning in the red zone even if Ewers remained under center for most snaps. Fornelli believes any deep College Football Playoff run for Texas depends on it.

“Even if it’s not a necessity against Clemson, the overall numbers suggest that if Texas is to win four playoff games and win a national title, it has to do a much better job of finishing drives, and that likely means the Longhorns will have to hand the reins over to Manning more often than they have been,” Fornelli wrote.

Sarkisian’s Longhorns coaching career will be put under the microscope if he doesn’t figure out how to win with the talent he has under center.

The conversation dominates discourse surrounding Texas football and will until they’re either eliminated or national champions.