Marcel Reed's superiority over Arch Manning could not be more obvious

Marcel Reed, a Heisman contender and signal caller for the undefeated Texas A&M Aggies, is a far better quarterback in 2025 than the preseason Heisman favorite Arch Manning. This is obvious to anyone who knows anything about football, yet a fanbase notorious for harboring precious few who meet that description are attempting to controvert the clear evidence of our eyes and ears.

Texas fans have been attempting to push a narrative of late that Arch Manning has been a better quarterback this season. That is a laughable assertion. Though Manning may turn out to be a higher NFL draft choice than Marcel when all is said and done— since it clearly wasn't his passing, he does possess several other NFL measurables that made him such a highly-rated recruit— he has been unworthy to shine Marcel's shoes when it comes to actually playing the position this year.

Marcel Reed's superiority over Arch Manning is clear and obvious, despite Texas fans' delusions

If you compare the totals for each quarterback for the season, they actually look relatively similar. But some easy filtering dispels this mirage like so much mist: it quickly becomes clear that many of Manning's most prodigious numbers came against low-level competition, Sam Houston in particular.

Play to play, Marcel cleans up against Arch in a shockingly obvious, no-contest sort of way. He's more efficient and more productive throwing the ball.

If the statistics above were not enough, the advanced stats bear this out as well. Take a look at the chart below— it shows that Marcel is, by far, the more complete quarterback.

Per collegefootballdata.com, Reed's passing success rate outside of garbage time is 48.8%, while Arch's is 39.7%. That means he is much more likely to keep the offense on schedule when throwing the ball than Arch is— Manning is extremely boom-or-bust this year.

The two edges that Arch has, statistically speaking, are rushing EPA (which is a function of him running for so many first downs on third-and-long) and pure passing explosiveness. However, as you see in the chart above, Marcel's explosive rate is far better, which means he is creating explosives at a far more reliable clip— which I'd much rather have.

This is one of the sillier "debates" out there, but you can't really expect top-shelf football discussion when it comes to this fanbase. The game on Friday will remove all doubt, but until then, we can only hope and pray that they will actually look at the numbers for once.