Arch Manning answered 19 questions in under a minute at his presser before Texas heads to Knoxville, and Paul Finebaum believes the media brought that on themselves. The commentator isn’t buying that Manning suddenly changed after the Steve Sarkisian-Holly Rowe AI video controversy. On his podcast this week, Finebaum said reporters piled unnecessary pressure on the 22-year-old after Texas’ Week 2 win over Ohio State by asking him irrelevant questions.

“Seth Golden, saying Arch is a personality but really shows it on camera,” the veteran analyst said during the Paul Finebaum Show. “And after the Holly Rowe controversy, the short answers have gotten even shorter. Monday was… I just want to say something here. Because Seth’s a friend of mine, but I’m with Arch. Arch made fools out of everybody in that room because they helped make him look like a fool last week with the Holly Rowe situation.”

The background to the initial controversy is important: it began when head coach Steve Sarkisian abruptly ended a postgame interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe, walking off mid-question after Texas’s historic win over the Buckeyes. The clip went viral, and someone created an AI-generated video of Sarkisian slapping Rowe.

When a reporter asked Manning about online edits of the win, he mentioned the fake clip and laughed about it, calling it “hilarious.” The reporters in the room laughed along with him, but the backlash that followed immediately increased the scrutiny on Manning. Although he later issued a public apology to Rowe, who accepted it, the controversy has yet to die down. Since then, many have pointed out that Manning has remained guarded with reporters and has been short with his replies, marking a sharp change from how open he used to be.

Finebaum sided with Manning, as he believes that the environment and the media members created such a moment where Manning is only bearing the brunt of the controversy. He pointed out that if Manning is asked a valuable question, he might answer it with relevance. But if the media people are sitting like fans hanging on his every word and asking “stupid and bogus questions”, the response would be curt.

Finebaum isn’t the only one saying this. Sports journalism has been dealing with this shift for a few years now. Since the COVID lockdowns closed locker rooms to reporters, many athletes never really opened back up, and platforms like Instagram and TikTok gave them a way to talk directly to fans without needing a press conference at all.

A recent Poynter report on this trend called it the “post-journalism era” of sports, pointing out that teams and players now run their own in-house content operations instead of relying on beat reporters.

That’s what makes Finebaum’s comment more than just one man defending a friend’s son. It touches a real problem for local and beat reporters: when a player like Manning can reach more people with a single Instagram post than most outlets get in a week, he has less reason to sit through repetitive pressers. Reporters lose access, and fans lose the smaller, more human moments that only come from those informal conversations.

“And I know a lot of my colleagues are probably not happy to hear me say this, but things have changed,” Finebaum said. “Guys like Arch Manning do not need the local yokels in the media. He can reach millions of people with one Instagram post. He can reach millions of people by doing something more than sitting there listening to a bunch of dumb questions from the local media who look like a pack of wolves trying to get some meat at feeding time.”

Finebaum stands by his motto of “don’t criticize the subject” and added that, with a player carrying the Manning surname, every word gets blown out of proportion.

On the field, Manning has led Texas to 3-0 and ranked No.1 in AP polls after a Week 3 win over UTSA. But the quarterback wasn’t thrilled with the sloppy offense despite a third consecutive win for the season. He admitted that he had to do better heading into the Week 4 matchup against Tennessee in Knoxville. Sarkisian has echoed that message, expecting more consistency from Manning as SEC play approaches and urging him to focus on his own game rather than the noise around him.